Uganda has sent a rescue team to eastern Bududa district where more than a 100 people may have been killed Monday by a landslide caused by heavy rainfall.
It is believed as many as three villages might have been buried.
A member of parliament from the region was quoted as saying that most people were likely indoors when huge blocks of mud and rocks started to roll down hills, toppling homes and burying an unspecified number of people alive.
Red Cross spokeswoman Catherine Ntabadde said: "From the latest reports we have we can only confirm 18 dead but assessment of the devastation around the area is continuing."
The Uganda Red Cross said it had sent a team of volunteers to assess the situation. Local authorities have said there could be about 80 people living in each village.
Ntabadde said nine people had been injured and 15 houses buried in the mudslide, while 29 houses were at risk and needed to be urgently relocated.
Issa Aliga, a reporter with the Uganda Daily Monitor newspaper, said the landslide is the second in the region in two years.
“This is the second time it is happening in this area. Late last year, it happened in this same area and many people died,” he said.
Landslides caused by heavy rains are frequent in eastern Uganda, where at least 23 people were killed last year after mounds of mud buried their homes. Scores of people were buried alive in a similar disaster in March 2010.
Member of Parliament David Wakikona said three villages had been flattened in Bumwalukani parish on the slopes of Mount Elgon "and the initial reports I have is that more than 100 have been buried.
"The areas around Bududa district have been experiencing heavy rains for days now," he said. "I am told the landslides started around midday today and that they're still going on and some villagers who survived the early slides are fleeing."
Aliga said the government is working with the Uganda Red Cross to recover the bodies of those believed to be buried in the debris.
He said the local people of the region, known as the Gissu, had refused to be relocated after the first landslide because the new land where the government had wanted to relocate them was not suitable for their way of life.
“The people in this area, they say that they have been staying in this area for a long time, and they refused to go by the government’s idea because the people here are cultivators, and they grow coffee.
But, in the areas where the government wanted to relocate them is a cattle area where people practice pasturing,” Aliga said.
Wakikona, was quoted as saying that about 300 people lived in the affected villages.
The Uganda Red Cross said it had sent a team of volunteers to assess the situation.
Local authorities have said there could be about 80 people living in each village.
Ntabadde said nine people had been injured and 15 houses buried in the mudslide, while 29 houses were at risk and needed to be urgently relocated.
Rain has fallen regularly on parts of Uganda over much of the past two months, even though this is usually a dry period between the rainy seasons.
Wakikona said army rescue teams would play a lead role in moving the soil during the rescue operation.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
http://www.voanews.com/content/uganda-to-begin-search-for-victims-and-possible-landslide-survivors/1249174.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/25/us-uganda-landlside-idUSBRE85O0MZ20120625
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