Death toll from a garbage slide at Kiteezi landfill rises to 21

Kampala, Aug 12—Rescue operations at Kiteezi landfill entered day 3 in a bid to find more bodies of victims of a vast garbage slide that buried about 50 houses and families in early hours of Saturday, August 10.

Rescue workers using heavy excavators and hand equipment have so far retrieved 21 bodies from the garbage and the number is expected to rise.

Police has cordoned off the area as a team of rescue workers from KCCA, Ministry of works, the Red Cross, a selected group of residents carry out rescue work.

President Yoweri Museveni said in a statement he had directed the prime minister to coordinate the removal of all those living near the garbage dump.

The government has also started investigations into the landslide’s cause and will take action against any officials found to have been negligent, the Inspectorate of Government said on X.

At least 14 people have been rescued so far, police spokesperson Patrick Onyango said, adding that more could still be trapped but the number was unknown.

Tents have been set up nearby for those displaced by the landslide, the Red Cross said.

The landfill site at 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.

Efforts by the city authority to procure a new landfill site have dragged on for years but had at last secured land at Ddundu in Mukono district. But residents in this area led by the area Member of Parliament, Abdalla Kiwanuka Mulimamayuni, have rejected turning their area into a garbage landfill and vowed to mobilise themselves to block tracks ferrying garbage to their area. Abdalla Kiwanuka said they have already petitioned court against damping garbage at Ddundu which he said is a a residential area.

City authorities had also secured another place at Nkumbai in Entebbe to temporarily use it as garbage damp place but with the development at Kiteezi landfill, Entebbe local authorities have also rejected damping garbage at their area, saying the place is too small to accommodate the volume of garbage from Kampala city.

  The garbage slide at Kiteezi landfill resulted from the accumulation of garbage into a hill- like structure that collapsed submerging surrounding houses, families and animals.  

The Kiteezi landfill, has been a damping area of about 1,500tons of garbage daily from the five divisions of Kampala city.

Kampala Lord Mayor, Erias Lukago, said during a site visit with the KCCA Directorate of Public Health in January this year, warned of the worrying state of the landfill.

There have been similar tragedies elsewhere in Africa from poorly managed mountains of municipal garbage.

In 2017 at least 115 people were killed in Ethiopia, crushed by a garbage landslide in Addis Ababa. In Mozambique, at least 17 people died in a similar 2018 disaster in Maputo.