Ethiopia declared three days of mourning on Friday following an unprecedented landslide in a remote part of the country’s south that killed 250 people.
Rescuers continue to search for bodies in the rugged Kensho Shasha Gozde area, as survivors bury those killed in the disaster, the deadliest landslide ever recorded in the Horn of Africa nation.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Thursday, citing local authorities, that 257 people had been killed, warning that the death toll could reach 500.
The Ethiopian parliament declared in a statement “three days of national mourning for the people who lost their lives in the landslide incident,” adding that it would begin on Saturday.
The statement, published by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, added that this period will allow condolences to be offered “to their relatives and all the people of our country.”
The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission had earlier said Friday that humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation were “underway” in the area.
She added that a structure had been established to “coordinate emergency disaster response,” noting that about six thousand people needed resettlement.
According to OCHA, “more than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated, including at least 1,320 children, in addition to 5,293 pregnant or newly delivered women.”
She noted that aid had begun to arrive, including four trucks from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society.
Officials said most of the victims died when they rushed to help after the first landslide, which followed heavy rains on Sunday, in the area about 480 kilometers (300 miles) from the capital, Addis Ababa.
International condolences poured in, including from the African Union, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Southern Ethiopia was among the areas affected by flooding in April and May, during the “short” rainy season. The “long” rainy season began in the East African country in June.
In May 2016, 41 people were killed in a landslide following heavy rains in the Wolaita Administrative Area, also in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region.
In 2017, 113 people were killed when a mountain of garbage collapsed on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.