Tearful locals search in mud for Ethiopia landslide victims

Tearful crowds gathered around a mud pit containing dead bodies Wednesday as volunteers dug for survivors of landslides that have killed 229 people and displaced thousands more in southern Ethiopia.

Humanitarian agencies scrambled to rush emergency relief aid to the stricken community after the deadliest such incident recorded in Ethiopia, a country highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Around 14,000 affected people, including children and pregnant women, need to be evacuated urgently because of the risk of further landslides in the remote and mountainous area, a UN source told AFP.

"Search and rescue operations are still ongoing and are being beefed up," the source said.

Images broadcast on regional state television from the site in Kencho Shacha Gozdi, in the state of South Ethiopia, showed residents using shovels and bare hands to dig through vast mounds of reddish mud.

In one graphic scene, dozens of men surrounded a pit where human limbs were exposed in the mud, while others carried bodies on makeshift stretchers.

In a nearby tent, women wailed as they sat near a row of bodies wrapped in mainly white shrouds.

Ethiopian Red Cross workers in red vests were distributing aid.

So far, 148 men and 81 women are confirmed to have died, the Gofa Zone Communications Affairs Department that covers the locality said Tuesday, but there are fears the toll could rise.

Senait Solomon, head of communications for the South Ethiopia regional government, said eight survivors had been rescued and taken to medical facilities for treatment.

The number of people still missing from Monday's disaster is not known, but Senait told AFP that updated tolls might be issued later Wednesday.

She said the landslide site was sloped and "prone to disasters", adding that conservation work to protect the area, including tree planting, had been underway at the time of the landslides.

- Drones aid search -

Firaol Bekele, early warning director at the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission (EDRMC), told AFP the search was being aided by drones operated by the country's intelligence and cybersecurity agency.

"The government is addressing urgent needs for food, water, medicine and shelter," he added.

Officials have said that most of the victims were buried after they rushed to help after the first landslide, which followed heavy rains Sunday in the area roughly 450 kilometres (270 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa -- about a 10-hour drive.

The UN source told AFP that about 125 people had been displaced and that 14,000 needed to be evacuated fast because of the risk of further landslides, including 5,000 pregnant or lactating women and 1,300 children.

More than 21 million people or about 18 percent of the population rely on humanitarian aid in Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa, as a result of conflict and natural disasters such as flooding and drought.

- 'Deeply saddened' -

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on X on Tuesday he was "deeply saddened by this terrible loss".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is Ethiopian, sent a message of condolence on X and said a WHO team was being deployed to support immediate health needs.

Condolences were also sent from the African Union and the US embassy in Addis Ababa, as well as neighbouring Djibouti.

Firaol of the EDRMC had told AFP on Tuesday that residents had tried to save lives after four households were initially affected by a mudslide.

"But they too perished when the landslide engulfed them," he said.

The UN's humanitarian response agency OCHA said Tuesday that a similar but lower-scale landslide struck in May in the same area, killing more than 50 people.

Seasonal rains in South Ethiopia state between April and early May had caused flooding, mass displacement and damage to livelihoods and infrastructure, it had said in May.

In 2017, at least 113 people died when a mountain of garbage collapsed in a dump in the outskirts of Addis Ababa.

The deadliest landslide in Africa was in Sierra Leone's capital in Freetown in August 2017, when 1,141 people perished.

Mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people in February 2010.