Uganda: Garbage dump covers homes – at least 21 dead

Neighbors of Uganda's capital Kampala's only landfill have long feared something bad could happen. Even the authorities have warned. Now heavy rains have brought disaster.

Ugandan authorities say at least 21 people have been killed after a rubbish dump collapsed in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. At least 14 people were injured. The city government said two of the dead were children.

After heavy rains on Friday, huge amounts of garbage came out of the hill in the Kitezh suburb of Kampala, burying nearby houses. So far, 14 people have been rescued from the rubble. Police expect more casualties and rescue work is ongoing. The Red Cross has set up a camp to accommodate the affected families.

Ugandan President Demands Clarification

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has ordered an investigation into the incident, and in a series of posts on Platform X, he questioned why people were living so close to an unstable pile of rubbish and who allowed it to happen.

The president wrote that the sewage from the landfill was so dangerous that people should not live there. He had already ordered the settlement to be evacuated after the cleanup work.

The Authority complains about the lack of funding allocated for waste disposal

Images showed an excavator digging through piles of rubbish as a crowd of people watched. Some residents gathered behind a police barricade and held up pictures of missing relatives.

Eight months ago, the city administration described the situation at the landfill as a “national crisis.” The authority has complained for years about insufficient funds allocated to waste disposal in the city of two million people.

Residents are concerned about their health.

The Kitezhi landfill, about eleven kilometres from the city centre, is said to be the only landfill in the city. Residents complain of health risks and pollution from the mountain of waste.

According to the independent Ugandan newspaper Daily Monitor, the 14-hectare landfill was established in 1996. About 1,200 tonnes of waste are disposed of daily.