NAMETSI, Uganda (Reuters) – Soldiers and villagers in eastern Uganda hacked at mounds of thick mud with picks and hoes yesterday in a desperate bid to find more survivors from a landslide that killed at least 80 people.
Waves of mud and rocks swept down the steep mountainside late on Monday night after seven hours of rain and engulfed the village of Nametsi, burying houses, people and livestock.
The hooves of a dead cow poked through the wet mud, villagers tentatively lifted blankets to see if the dead beneath were relatives and an old lady sobbed over her husband’s body.
Some carried away corpses on makeshift stretchers and others stood and gazed at the swathe of mud hundreds of metres wide that ploughed through the village and surrounding banana fields.
The hamlets cling to isolated mountainsides with no proper road access, making rescue efforts difficult. It is a two-hour trek from the main road to Nametsi, making it very difficult to get earth moving equipment there.
Tarsis Kabwegyere, Minister for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, told Reuters on Tuesday evening that 80 bodies had been recovered, but hundreds more people were missing.
The government said three villages with more than 3,000 residents were badly hit and mudslides were feared in five other districts experiencing continual heavy rain.
A local leader in the area said President Yoweri Museveni had ordered the resettlement into temporary camps of some 2,000 people still living under the threat of mudslides on the foothills of Mt Elgon.
“The army has also set up an emergency medical facility near the disaster area to treat the badly injured and the government has also sent us a consignment of relief items like drugs, water and some food,” said Bududa district local council chairman, Richard Watira.
Museveni issued the directive when he visited the affected villages early yesterday, Watira said.
Parts of Uganda and neighbouring Kenya have had sustained rainfall over much of the past two months — usually a dry period between rainy seasons — and floods have hit large areas.
In Nametsi, residents clambered over crumpled corrugated iron sheets and large wooden poles embedded in the mud — all that remained of their homes.
