KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The death toll from a deadly flood in Uganda has risen to… The garbage mountain that collapsed The death toll from a building roof collapse in the Ugandan capital rose to 24 on Monday as rescuers using excavators continued to search for victims, city authorities said.
At least four children were among those killed in the Kitezh landfill collapse on Friday, police told reporters.
The collapse is believed to have been caused by heavy rain. Exact details of what happened are not clear, but city authorities said there was a “structural failure of the waste mass.”
There is no hope of saving more people alive, said Irene Nakasiita, a spokeswoman for the Uganda Red Cross.
It is not clear how many people are still unaccounted for. The Kitezh landfill is a huge waste dump located in a poor, mountainous area and receives hundreds of garbage trucks every day. City authorities have been aiming to close it since it was declared waste-free years ago.
It is also a no-man’s land in the city of three million, attracting women and children looking for plastic waste to sell. Others have built permanent homes nearby.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni Authorities have ordered an investigation into the disaster, asking in a series of posts on social media platform X why people were living so close to an unstable pile of rubbish.
“Who allowed people to live near such a potentially dangerous pile?” Museveni said, adding that the waste from the site was dangerous enough that people should not live there.
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