SALON

Monday, Jun 25, 2012 3:45 PM UTC

Uganda landslides destroy 3 villages; toll unknown

By

Topics: From the Wires,

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Massive landslides induced by torrential rains destroyed three villages in the mountainous district of Bududa in eastern Uganda, killing scores of people but possibly hundreds, officials said Monday.

Disaster Preparedness Minister Stephen Mallinga said it was still too early to say how many had been killed in Monday afternoon’s landslides, but officials from Bududa said the final death toll would likely be in the hundreds.

“We are sending a rescue team down there,” Mallinga said. “It’s very difficult to estimate how many have been killed, but two villages are affected, and maybe more.”

Witnesses said the landslides were unexpected, happening several hours after a torrential overnight downpour that at first seemed to have done little damage.

David Wakikona, a lawmaker from the region, said most people were likely indoors when huge blocks of mud and rocks started to roll down hills, toppling homes, killing livestock and burying people alive.

“We don’t yet understand how this all happened, but it’s terrible,” Wakikona said. “Three villages have been buried.”

According to Wakikona, at least 300 people lived in the affected villages. Officials said rescue teams from the Ugandan army would play a lead role in moving the soil as the search for possible survivors begins.

The Uganda Red Cross said two villages had been destroyed and that at least 15 houses had been buried in the landslides. It may take time before the full death toll from such disasters is known, as often it requires rescuers working with hoes and shovels to dig through the mud and find bodies trapped underneath.

Landslides are a common occurrence in the hilly parts of eastern Uganda, and they have been especially lethal over the years in those villages where the land is denuded of vegetation cover. In 2010 massive landslides in Bududa killed about 100 people, destroying everything from the village market to a church.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who visited the scene, said at the time that the landslides were divine retribution for the people’s failure to give to the land what they take from it. The villages are usually heavily populated, and often they live on land bare of trees.

There has been fierce resistance to a government effort to relocate the most vulnerable people in Bududa and neighboring districts, with some activists there saying it would be even more disastrous to abandon their ancestral homes. Even those who were relocated to a camp for refugees after the 2010 landslides secretly returned to Bududa, said Mallinga, the disaster preparedness minister.

“There’s a degree of unwillingness to leave,” Mallinga said.

More Rodney Muhumuza.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3040 points3041 points | 1926 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
944 points945 points | 486 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
151 points152 points | 48 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
31 points32 points | 14 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
24 points25 points | 10 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations