Landslide at Uganda rubbish dump kills 21

KAMPALA: At least 21 people are now known to have died after a landslide at a massive rubbish dump in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, police have said.

Rescuers are continuing to dig through the waste in the hope of finding more survivors after the landslide, which followed weeks of torrential rain.

The 36-acre (14-hectare) Kiteezi landfill is the only one serving the whole of Kampala, a city home to an estimated four million people.

Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango said that they had received 21 bodies of victims from the landfill landslide.

“We are still trying to get in touch with the local authorities, they are giving various figures but as security we have tasked our team to engage the families who lost their beloved ones and also to engage the local community and the local leaders and maybe to get the data from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics to get the actual number of people who were there,” he added.

The Kiteezi landfill is on a steep slope in an impoverished part of the city.

Women and children who scavenge plastic waste for income frequently gather there, and some homes have been built close to the landfill.

Kampala authorities for years have considered closing the site and commissioning a larger area outside the city as a waste disposal site.

It was not clear why the plan has failed to take off since 2016.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered an investigation into the incident, asking in a series of posts on the social platform X why people were living in close proximity to an unstable heap of garbage.

On Monday morning, a spokesperson from the national police force said 21 bodies had been retrieved, four of which were children.

Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango told AFP on Sunday that 14 people had been rescued.

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“The rescue operation is still ongoing until we are sure no-one is trapped,” he said.

Mr Onyango said that some 1,000 people had been forced to leave their homes because of the landslide. He did not specify how many had been living on the site, or whether they were living nearby.

Many people earn their living by trawling through the piles of rubbish looking for anything that can be resold.

The Uganda Red Cross has been providing tents to those in need of temporary shelter.