USING shovels or their bare hands, local residents on Tuesday searched desperately for survivors after a landslide in a remote area of southern Ethiopia killed at least 229 people, the deadliest such disaster recorded in the Horn of Africa nation.
Crowds gathered at the site of the tragedy in an isolated and mountainous area of South Ethiopia regional state as some people clawed through mounds of red dirt, according to images posted on social media by the local authority.
So far, 148 men and 81 women are confirmed to have lost their lives after the disaster struck on Monday in the Kencho-Shacha locality in the Gofa Zone, the local Communications Affairs Department said in a statement.
Five people had been pulled alive from the mud and were receiving treatment at medical facilities, the government-owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation reported earlier.
It quoted local administrator Dagemawi Ayele as saying that most of the victims were buried after they went to help local residents hit by a first landslide following heavy rains.
Dagemawi said that among the victims were the locality’s administrator as well as teachers, health professionals and agricultural professionals.
Images posted by the Gofa authority showed residents carrying bodies of the dead on makeshift stretchers, some wrapped in plastic sheeting.
“Initially, four households were affected by the landslide, and later households in the area were mobilised to save lives,” Firaol Bekele, early warning director at the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC), told AFP.
“But they too perished when the landslide engulfed them,” he said, adding that the commission had sent an emergency team to the area, along with food and other aid for the stricken community.
Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa with around 120 million people, is highly vulnerable to climate disasters including flooding and drought.
“I am deeply saddened by this terrible loss,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on X.
“Following the accident, the Federal Disaster Prevention Task Force has been deployed to the area and is working to reduce the impact of the disaster.”
