ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, July 27 (AP): Ethiopian lawmakers declared three days of mourning Friday as diggers continued their search for bodies of mudslide victims in a remote part of the East African country.
Heavy rain triggered deadly slides on Sunday and Monday in Ethiopia's south, killing at least 257 people, according to the UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA. It said in its latest update that the death toll could rise to as many as 500, citing local officials.
"More than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated" from the area, OCHA said.
The national assembly said a three-day period of national mourning would begin on Saturday. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier in the week that he was "deeply saddened by this terrible loss.”
Many people were buried in the Gofa Zone of Kencho Shacha Gozdi district on Monday, as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors from mudslides the previous day.
Photos from the scene show residents standing over the shrouded bodies of mudslide victims who are being pulled, one by one, from the muddy earth. Diggers have been using hand shovels to pick through the mud.
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said on the social platform X that UN agencies were dispatching food and other critical supplies to help affected people.
Landslides are common during Ethiopia’s rainy reason, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September.
Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider East African region, from Uganda’s mountainous east to central Kenya’s highlands. In April, at least 45 people were killed in Kenya’s Rift Valley region when flash floods and a landslide swept through houses and cut off a major road.