At least 18 dead after landfill site collapses in Uganda’s capital
11 August 2024, 17:44
The collapse is believed to have been triggered by heavy rain.
At least 18 people were killed when a vast landfill site in the Ugandan capital collapsed, the Red Cross said.
Fourteen other people were injured when the Kiteezi landfill, which serves as a waste disposal site for much of Kampala, collapsed late on Friday.
At least two of the dead were children, Kampala Capital City Authority said in a statement.
The collapse is believed to have been triggered by heavy rain.
The precise details of what happened were unclear, but the city authority said there was a “structural failure in waste mass”.
Uganda Red Cross spokeswoman Irene Nakasiita said the toll reached 18 after more bodies were recovered from the scene on Sunday.
“The assessment is not yet completed,” she said, adding that rainfall was slowing the efforts of rescue teams digging through heaps of rubbish.
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 site.
Kampala authorities have been considering closing the site for years and commissioning a larger area outside the city as a waste disposal site. It is 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 social media platform X, formerly Twitter, why people are living in such close proximity to an unstable heap of rubbish.
“Who allowed people to live near such a potentially hazardous and dangerous heap?” he said, adding that effluent from the site is hazardous enough that people should not be living there.
