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Ethiopia Mourns Many Killed In Mudslide

by Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

ADDIS ABABA (Worthy News) – Ethiopia plunged into mourning Saturday as diggers continued their search for bodies of victims of a mudslide that reportedly killed hundreds of people.

Heavy rain triggered deadly slides on Sunday and Monday in Ethiopia’s south, killing at least 257 people, according to the United Nations humanitarian office, known as OCHA

It said in its latest update that the death toll could rise to as many as 500, citing local officials. “More than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated” from the area, OCHA said.

The national assembly announced that three days of national mourning would begin on Saturday.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier in the week that he was “deeply saddened by this terrible loss”

Many people were buried in the Gofa Zone of Kencho Shacha Gozdi district on Monday, which followed heavy rains in the area roughly 480 kilometers (270 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, officials and witnesses said.

HEAVY RAINS

Authorities said most victims were buried when they rushed to help after the first landslide, which followed heavy rains Sunday in the area.

Resident Getachew Geza told reporters that he and his son rushed to help after hearing two houses had been buried.

“When we got there …a massive mudslide overwhelmed everyone, including my son,”
Geza added.

In one graphic scene shown on social media by the local authority, dozens of men surrounded a pit where human limbs were exposed in the mud.

Other villagers carried bodies on makeshift stretchers while in a nearby tent, women wailed as they sat near a row of bodies wrapped in shrouds being prepared for burial, reporters said.

Despite these setbacks, rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors from mudslides the previous day.

DISPATCHING FOOD

Footage from the scene showed residents standing over the shrouded bodies of mudslide victims who were being pulled, one by one, from the muddy earth.

Diggers were seen using hand shovels to pick through the mud.

Antonio Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, said on the social platform X that U.N. agencies were dispatching food and other critical supplies to help affected people in the troubled nation of some 120 million people.

Landslides are common during Ethiopia’s rainy season, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September.

Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider East African region, from Uganda’s mountainous east to central Kenya’s highlands, impacting many impoverished areas.