Men are still digging through mounds of mud with their bare hands and spades at the site of one of Ethiopia’s deadliest landslides in an effort to locate the missing. Their efforts are interrupted by the cries of women and children mourning the 229 bodies that have been discovered thus far.
They are the victims of nature’s cruel act: on Sunday, weighty downpours caused an avalanche in a far off town roosted high on a mountain in the distant Gofa zone.
Women and children watched as they prayed and consoled one another as the landslide engulfed four homes. Numerous villagers and police officers from the area came to dig through the mud in the hope of finding the occupants alive.
On Monday, the search went on, but a second landslide happened, burying hundreds of people under the mud—how many are unknown.
When I arrived late on Wednesday in Gofa, in the south-west of Ethiopia, between 100 and 200 mostly young men were still digging, while relatives sat nearby hoping for the best.
Since there is no road leading to the village, the diggers did not have any earth-moving equipment, so it is impossible to bring it in.
Only a narrow, now muddy footpath runs along the cliff. It is a hazardous and steep move up to the town – and the stroll down is likewise perilous.
Families have been forced to carry their loved one down this footpath for a formal burial whenever a body has been discovered.
Women and children in these farming communities have not stopped weeping while men with gloomy appearances have been erecting tombs on top of graves.
Debacle help authorities have been cited as saying that robots are being utilized in the hunt and-salvage tasks.
I talked to one man who said he saw them on Tuesday but hasn’t seen them since.
For the townspeople, there is just a single choice: to continue digging with spades and bare hands in the hope of discovering their loved ones alive.
On Wednesday, the weather cooperated, making digging easier.
Gofa is in the state of Southern Ethiopia, about 320 kilometers (199 miles) southwest of Addis Ababa, the capital.
It is one of the parts of the country that has experienced flooding and particularly heavy rain in recent months.
Floods and landslides, on the other hand, date back even further.
In the south of the country, heavy rain in May 2016 caused floods and landslides that killed at least 50 people.
Ethiopia needs $3 billion (£2.3 billion) to assist those affected by El Nio over the past year, which has resulted in drought, flooding, and conflict. However, the effort has been “woefully underfunded,” according to the UN humanitarian office (Ocha).
Paul Handley, the head of Ocha Ethiopia, stated to the BBC’s Newsday program, “With the extremes of rain coming we also expect more of these kinds of emergencies to continue.”
Mr. Handley went on to say that 10,000 people in the affected area needed to be evacuated “out of harm’s way” because of concerns about the slope’s stability.
Basillioh Rukanga of the BBC in Nairobi contributed additional reporting.
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