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Thirty-five people have been killed in a landslide at a vast rubbish dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, officials say. And dozens of people are said to be still missing since the landslide on Saturday night at the Koshe landfill. A resident said 150 people were there at the time.
A number of makeshift houses are now buried under tonnes of waste. The area has been a dumping ground for Addis Ababa’s rubbish for more than five decades.
Local resident Tebeju Asres told the AP news agency that the family’s house had been swallowed by the landslide.
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“My mother and three of my sisters were there when the landslide happened. Now I don’t know the fate of all of them.”
Many people had been scavenging at the site to make a living, and some even resided there permanently.
There are fears that the death toll will rise further. It should be noted that the authorities have been building Africa’s first waste-to-energy plant near the landfill. It is planned that the rubbish generated by the capital’s estimated four million people will be converted into electricity.
