Mudslides In Southern Ethiopia Have Claimed At Least 157 Lives

Local officials said on Tuesday that at least 157 people had perished in mudslides in a rural area of Ethiopia that had seen intense rains, many of them while attempting to save survivors of an earlier mudslide.

According to local administrator Dagmawi Ayele, mudslides in the southern Ethiopian province of Kencho Shacha Gozdi have claimed the lives of several people, including pregnant women and small children.

According to Kassahun Abayneh, the director of the Gofa Zone communications office, the dead toll increased from 55 late on Monday to 157 on Tuesday as search and rescue efforts persisted in the region. The administrative region where the mudslides happened is called Gofa Zone.

On Monday morning, while rescuers combed the steep terrain for survivors of another mudslide that had occurred the day before, the majority of the fatalities were buried beneath a mudslide.

According to Ayele, at least five persons had been extracted alive from the muck.

While attempting to rescue others, many members of the mud-covered group remained unaccounted for, according to Markos Melese, another Gofa official.

According to Melese, the director of the Gofa Zone disaster response organization, “we are still searching for the missing.”

“There are children who are hugging corpses, having lost their entire family, including mother, father, brother and sister, due to the accident,” he stated.