100
feared dead in Uganda landslide on Mt. Elgon
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Updated 55 mins ago
Many villagers are feared dead in eastern Uganda
on Monday after a landslide buried several settlements on the slopes of Mt.
Elgon which straddles the Kenyan border, local media reports said.
Some reports said about 10 people have been
killed in the landslide, while the local Member of Parliament, David Wakikona,
told Reuters that up to 100 people could have been buried. This could not be
independently verified.
"Three villages have been flattened in the
Bumwalukani parish on the slopes of Mt. Elgon and the initial reports I have is
that more than 100 have been buried," he said.
"The areas around Bududa district have been
experiencing heavy rains for days now and I am told the landslides started around
midday today and that they're still going on and some villagers who survived
the early slides are fleeing."
Landslides caused by heavy rains are frequent in
eastern Uganda where at least 23 people were killed last year after mounds of
mud buried their homes. Scores of others were buried alive in a similar
disaster in March 2010.
The area affected produces coffee in what is the
third biggest economy in east Africa.
The Uganda Red Cross Society said it had sent a
team of volunteers to assess the situation. Local authorities have said there
could be about 80 people living in each village.
"We have reports of landslides in Bududa
but we have no word on casualties yet. We have sent out teams but we haven't
heard from them yet," Catherine Ntabadde, a spokeswoman for Uganda Red
Cross said.
Nine people had been injured and 15 houses
buried in the mudslide, while 29 houses were at risk and needed to be urgently
relocated, she added.
Rain has fallen over parts of Uganda in a
sustained fashion for much of the past two months, even though it is usually a
dry period between the rainy seasons.
-Reuters
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