Two children among eight dead in Uganda landfill collapse

An excavator helps search for people trapped under debris after a landfill collapsed in Kampala on August 10, 2024.[AFP]

Eight people including two children were killed when mountains of garbage collapsed at a landfill in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Saturday, the city authority said.

Local media said homes, people and livestock animals were engulfed in the landslide at the vast garbage dump in Kiteezi, a district in the north of Kampala, after heavy rainfall.

"On a very sad note eight people have so far been found dead, six adults and two children," the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) which operates the site, said in a statement.

The disaster comes eight months after the ceremonial head of the authority described the situation at the landfill as a "national crisis".

The KCCA said in the statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, that 14 people had been rescued and taken to hospital. It did not disclose their condition.

"The rescue operation is still ongoing and we shall share updates as they come in," it added.

Images from Kiteezi showed a Ugandan police excavator churning through huge mounds of rubbish as large crowds of residents looked on.

Some were gathered behind a yellow police tape, carrying pictures of their missing loved ones.

Structural failure

The KCCA said there was a "structural failure in waste mass this morning resulting in a collapsed section of the landfill".

"Our teams, along with other government agencies are on ground taking the necessary measures to ensure the area is secure and to prevent any further incidents," it added.

"The level of damage is still being assessed."

In January, KCCA ceremonial head Erias Lukwago, who carries the honorary title of Lord Mayor of Kampala, had warned that people working and living near the Kiteezi landfill were at risk of numerous health hazards due to overflowing waste.

He said the site was not maintained at all, describing the situation as a "national crisis" that needed the central government and parliament to intervene.

The official in charge of the site, Vincent Mbaizireki, said it was was full to capacity.

The Daily Monitor, an independent newspaper in Uganda, said the 36-acre (14-hectare) landfill was established in 1996 and was the dumpsite for all garbage collected across Kampala, receiving about 1,200 tonnes of waste a day.

Several parts of East Africa have been battered by heavy rains recently, including Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent.

Devastating landslides in a remote and mountainous area in southern Ethiopia last month killed around 250 people, with the UN's humanitarian response agency OCHA saying several thousand people needed emergency evacuation.

In February 2010, mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people.