The death toll from a landslide at a vast garbage dump in Uganda’s capital Kampala has risen to 13, police said on Sunday, as rescue personnel continued to dig for survivors.<\/p>\n
After torrential rain in recent weeks a chunk of garbage from the city’s only landfill site broke off late on Friday, crushing and burying homes on the edge of the site as residents slept.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the Kampala Capital City Authority had put the death toll at eight.<\/p>\n
“The latest we have is 13 dead, but rescue services are continuing,” said police spokesperson Patrick Onyango.<\/p>\n
At least 14 people have been rescued so far, he said, adding that more could still be trapped but the number is unknown.<\/p>\n
Tents have been set up nearby for those displaced by the landslide, Uganda Red Cross said.<\/p>\n
The landfill site, known as Kiteezi, has served as Kampala’s sole garbage dump for decades and had turned into a big hill. Residents have long complained of hazardous waste polluting the environment and posing a danger to residents.<\/p>\n
Efforts by the city authority to procure a new landfill site have dragged on for years.<\/p>\n
There have been similar tragedies elsewhere in Africa from poorly managed mountains of municipal garbage.<\/p>\n
In 2017 at least 115 people were\u00a0killed in Ethiopia, crushed by a landslide at a garbage dump in Addis Ababa. In Mozambique, at least 17 people died in a similar 2018 disaster in Maputo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The death toll from a landslide at a vast garbage dump in Uganda’s capital Kampala has risen to 13, police said on Sunday, as rescue personnel continued to dig for survivors. After torrential rain in recent weeks a chunk of garbage from the city’s only landfill site broke off late on Friday, crushing and burying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":13,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,34],"tags":[372,114,2925,2926,71,132,2924],"class_list":["post-12839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-society","tag-addis-ababa","tag-ethiopia","tag-landfill","tag-maputo","tag-mozambique","tag-uganda","tag-uganda-red-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}