After more than 257 individuals were killed in the disaster, locals hunt desperately for the missing by hand-digging through mud.
For days, retired teacher Meaza Tadelu, clinging to hope that his missing wife might still be alive, has watched with despair. Barefoot and frail at 66, he observed as younger volunteers tirelessly dug through mud and debris in search of survivors in his village in Ethiopia’s Gofa Zone.
“She went to the nearby market to buy household goods, and I fear she was caught in the mudslide,” Tadelu, a resident of Daly village, said, his clothes and thin hands covered in mud.
The initial disaster occurred last Sunday when intense rains in the mountainous southern region triggered a deadly landslide that destroyed homes and swept away people.
Locals and police quickly responded to help, but a second landslide on Monday took even more lives, including those of some rescuers.
Tadelu’s brother was among the volunteers who went to search for his wife.
“When my brother went to the landslide site to look for her, he also perished,” he said, visibly heartbroken.
Like many in the village, Tadelu has scarcely slept all week. The ordeal has deeply unsettled him, and he breaks down in tears whenever he talks about the tragedy.
According to Ethiopian officials, the accident claimed at least 257 lives; OCHA, the UN agency responsible for humanitarian relief, projects that number to roughly treble to 500.
OCHA reports that more landslides are anticipated, putting 15,500 people in the region at danger of damage, including 5,293 pregnant and nursing mothers and at least 1,320 children under the age of five.
A week after the disaster, the air was filled with the sounds of mourning women and crying children as local men worked feverishly to dig through the mud, looking for hundreds of loved ones who had been buried. Authorities stated that search efforts were continuing through the weekend.
The rugged mountainous terrain has hindered the use of heavy machinery, forcing dozens of people to dig by hand using spades and pickaxes since Monday in their quest to find the missing.
‘He is no longer here’
Sitting in the comforting arms of her sisters was Almaz Tadesae, a distressed thirty-year-old mother.
According to Tadesae, she felt as though she had lost her seven children in an instant.
From her mud house in the hilly village of Daly, Almaz Tadesae saw her family overwhelmed by a torrent of mud early Monday morning.
They were on their way home from church when the disaster struck the village. She had stayed home that day but now regrets not having gone with them.
“I would rather be dead than endure the immense grief I’m facing now,” Almaz wept as she spoke.
On Thursday, people gathered on a hilltop field, usually reserved for religious and national events, for a mass funeral for the deceased.
The local government quickly organized the ceremony, which was attended by hundreds of villagers, some of whom had brought bodies on donkeys and carts for burial.
While donations were being made to assist those impacted by the landslides, several people at the improvised grieving ground displayed pictures of their missing family members. The deceased were interred in unmarked graves on one side of the field.
Tamene Ayele, 54, was grieving there as well.
Ayele lost all four members of his family, including his youngest son who had raced to the scene following the initial mudslide wave in an attempt to locate his siblings.
The 17-year-old was buried alive in the second landslide while he was busy using just his bare hands to dig to help find his family.
Relieved Ayele is now certain that he is also dead after days without seeing his son.
“My son was a farmer like me but dreamed of going to college,” Ayele said through his tears.
“He worked and studied diligently and was meant to be the first in our family to attend college, but now he’s gone,” he added, sobbing.
Devastating loss
Ethiopia, the second most populated nation in Africa, is seeing some of the fastest economic development rates in the region and among the highest in the world.
However, the isolated community of Daly and its bereaved populace serve as stark reminders of the pervasive poverty that still exists today.
Here, some 320 kilometers (199 miles) southwest of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, people live in mud huts, the infrastructure is run-down, and there are no paved roads.
Locals have testified that the difficulty of receiving assistance in a timely manner has compounded the difficulty of rescue operations.
In a statement, OCHA reported that the Ethiopian Red Cross only arrived at the scene on July 23 with four trucks carrying essential supplies. Due to heavy rains and the challenging terrain, OCHA noted that there are “significant obstacles to accessing the affected areas.”
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed his deep sorrow over the tragedy in a post on X on Tuesday, stating that the Federal Disaster Prevention Task Force has been deployed to mitigate the disaster’s effects. However, locals claim the task force has not yet arrived. Abiy, who visited the disaster-stricken village briefly on Saturday with his wife, planted a tree in the cemetery to show solidarity.
The government is finalizing plans to relocate the affected population, with more than 5,600 vulnerable individuals scheduled for immediate evacuation, according to OCHA on Friday.
In the meantime, over 500 people have been displaced, and locals are largely left to search for the missing on their own. Lacking proper equipment and professional assistance, villagers have been digging through the debris with whatever tools they can find, including their hands, sticks, axes, and shovels.
On Thursday, while the desperate digging continued, young prisoners from a nearby detention center were brought in to assist with the rescue operations.
Despite reassurances from local officials, the search for survivors has had only limited success.
Rising frequency of landslides
Landslides have become more frequent in the Greater Horn of Africa, largely due to rapid deforestation.
In May 2016, heavy rains and landslides killed around 50 people, with climate change possibly playing a role. Retired teacher Tadelu, who had long feared such a disaster, now faces the reality of it. Despite his efforts to prevent it, he is deeply worried about his missing wife and mourns his brother. As days pass, he struggles with sleepless nights and continues to search through the debris with hope and determination.
