According to a city official on Monday, the number of fatalities from a garbage landslide in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, has increased to 23.
Following heavy rainfall on Saturday, the landfill in the northern Kampala district of Kiteezi collapsed, engulfing people and animals with piles of waste.
“The latest confirmed dead are 23,” Kampala city authority spokesman Daniel Nuweabine told AFP, adding that the search for survivors was still ongoing.
“Working with other agencies, we are assessing the situation and helping all those in distress,” he added.
The region’s resident commissioner, Yasin Ndide, stated on Sunday that five children were among the victims.
Excavators worked through the large piles of garbage over the weekend as residents watched, wailed, and wept during the desperate search for survivors.
City mayor Erias Lukwago described the incident as a “national disaster” and expressed concerns that many more people could still be trapped in the heap as the rescue operation continues.
He raised concerns about the hazardous risks of overflowing waste on the 36-acre landfill, which has been in operation since 1996 and receives almost all of Kampala’s waste.
President Yoweri Museveni announced that he had instructed the army’s special forces to assist in the search and rescue operation. He demanded to know who permitted people to live near such a “potentially hazardous and dangerous heap.”
Recent heavy rains have affected various areas in Uganda and other parts of East Africa, including Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous country.
Last month, approximately 250 people were killed in devastating landslides in a remote mountainous area in southern Ethiopia.
In February 2010, more than 350 people lost their lives in mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda.