The death toll from the Uganda garbage landslide has risen to 34

Four more bodies have been retrieved from the site of a large garbage landslide in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, increasing the total death toll to 34, police said Friday.

The collapse of a landfill in the northern district of Kiteezi over the weekend buried people, homes, and cattle in mountains of fetid trash.

An MP representing the area has warned that the number of people missing may yet climb.

“With the recovery of four bodies on Thursday, the death toll has reached 34,” Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesman Patrick Onyango told AFP.

He noted that despite the fact that part of the waste site was flooding and excavators could not be used, the victims’ recovery was still underway.

He stated that one of the bodies discovered on Thursday belonged to Abdul Nasir, a guy who had been missing since 2022.

With the discovery of the dead, the total number of missing people has dropped to 35, down from an earlier official figure of 39.

However, shadow foreign affairs minister Muwada Nkunyingi, who is also the area’s representative in parliament, stated, “There are more people missing than what police have reported.”

According to community members, the death toll could be as high as 100, since people have been turning up looking for loved ones and family members since the catastrophe, he told AFP.

Excavators have been working through the massive waste mounds, often during torrential downpours.

Erias Lukwago, the mayor of Kampala, condemned the occurrence as a “national disaster”.

He has previously warned about the dangers of overflowing rubbish at the dump, which was constructed in 1996 and receives nearly all garbage collected in Kampala.
Heavy rains have recently hit Uganda and other parts of East Africa.

AFP