The United Nation’s Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that the death toll from landslides that hit south-western Ethiopia on Sunday and Monday has risen to 257 and could reach about 500 persons as the rescue mission continues.
Heavy rains in the mountainous Gofa zone caused a landslide on Sunday night, followed by a second on Monday morning that trapped people who were rescuing victims of the first.
The death toll stood at 229 on Tuesday, according to Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC).
At least 125 people have been displaced and 12 injured, OCHA said in an update on Thursday, adding that more than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated immediately because of the risk of more landslides.
Search and rescue operations are continuing with images the Gofa authorities posted on Facebook showing people digging through the mud with their bare hands.
One survivor, Tseganesh Obole, told Agence France-Presse that mud had swept down a hill and engulfed her and her six children.
“I was swallowed by a mudslide along with many people, including my children,” she said as her remaining family stood in shock nearby.
Her brother Dawit clawed through the mud to get her out, but “four of my children died and remained buried”, she said. Her husband is still missing, also presumed buried in the mud.
Obole’s family are among the thousands of people affected by the deadliest landslide so far recorded in Ethiopia, which is highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.
Dawit, who had himself been pulled from the mud, said he returned to dig out his sister. “When I went there the second time, only two of her children survived,” he told AFP.
Gofa is a remote area in the South Ethiopia regional state. The disaster came after heavy seasonal rains between April and May that caused flooding, damaged infrastructure and displaced more than 1,000 people.
Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to drought, flooding and other climate disasters. A landslide in 2016 killed 41 people after torrential rain in Wolaita, in southern Ethiopia, and unusually heavy rainfall in the south and east of the country last November killed dozens of people and displaced hundreds of thousands. – With The Guardian report
