Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopian lawmakers declared three days of mourning on Friday as diggers continued their search for the bodies of landslide victims in a remote area of the East African country.
Heavy Rain caused deadly landslides on Sunday and Monday in southern Ethiopia, killing at least 257 people, according to the U.N. 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 must be evacuated” from the area, OCHA said.
The national assembly said a three-day national mourning period would begin on Saturday. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier this week that he was “deeply saddened by this terrible loss.”
Many people were buried in the Gofa area of Kencho Shacha Gozdi district on Monday, as rescuers searched the steep terrain for survivors of the previous day’s landslides.
Photos from the scene show residents standing over the shrouded bodies of landslide victims being pulled, one by one, from the muddy ground. Diggers have been using hand shovels to dig out the mud.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on social platform X that UN agencies were sending food and other critical supplies to help affected people.
Landslides are common during Ethiopia’s rainy season, which began in July and is expected to last until mid-September.
Deadly landslides often occur throughout the East African region, from mountainous eastern Uganda to the highlands of central Kenya. In April, at least 45 people died in the Rift Valley region of Kenya, when flash floods and a landslide swept away homes and cut off a main road.
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