At least 24 people crushed to death by rubbish during landslide at Uganda waste dump
12 August 2024, 12:27
At least 24 people have died following a collapse of a mountain of rubbish in the Ugandan capital Kampala, according to the city authority.
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At least four children are among those killed by the collapse at the Kiteezi landfill on Friday, police told reporters.
Rescuers with excavators have continued searching for victims of the collapse, which is understood to have been triggered by heavy rainfall.
The precise details of the incident remain unclear, but the city authority have said there was a "structural failure in waste mass".
It was not clear how many people were unaccounted for but Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Uganda Red Cross, said there was no hope of rescuing more people alive.
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The Kiteezi landfill is a vast rubbish dumpsite in an impoverished hillside area that receives hundreds of waste trucks daily despite the city authority aiming to decommission it since declaring it full years ago.
Women and children often scavenge plastic waste from the site they aim to sell while others have built permanent homes nearby.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ordered an investigation into the disaster, questioning on social media why people were living in such close proximity to an unstable pile of rubbish.
"Who allowed people to live near such a potentially hazardous and dangerous heap?" Mr Museveni asked, adding that effluent from the site is hazardous enough that people should not be living there.
