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ADDIS ABABA. – Rescue teams have so far retrieved the bodies of 229 people killed in two mudslides in southern Ethiopia, a local official has said.
The mudslides occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning, after heavy rains in a remote mountainous area of the Gofa zone.
The local authority said the search for survivors was “continuing vigorously” but that the “death toll could yet increase”.
Footage showed hundreds of people gathered at the scene and others digging in the dirt in search of people trapped underneath.
Young children and pregnant women were among the victims of the mudslides in the Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator.
Most of the victims were buried in a mudslide on Monday morning as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors of another mudslide the previous day.
At least five people have been pulled alive from the mud, Ayele said.
Another official in Gofa, Markos Melese, said many people remained unaccounted for among the group that was covered by mud while trying to rescue others.
“There are children who are hugging corpses, having lost their entire family, including mother, father, brother and sister, due to the accident,” said Melese. – Agencies
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