Excavators and bulldozers dig deep into a mountain of rubbish for the third day in a landfill in the outskirt of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa trying to find bodies buried under the pile of garbage in Saturday night’s collapse of the landfill.
State media reported that the death toll reached 72 by Tuesday night but it is not clear how many still remain unaccounted for. Other sources close to ESAT put the death toll at 90.
The burial of 40 people were conducted on Tuesday as the country’s parliament declared three days of mourning.
Survivors recounted their horrifying stories on the state television. A woman who was half buried and dug out to safety by her neighbors says she doesn’t know where her two children and husband are, and if they had survived the tragedy. “I heard one of my daughters screaming for help buried somewhere in the pile of rubbish. I don’t know if she survives.”
Among the dead were two toddlers and a mother. A man says he lost four of his children and his wife.
4,000,000 tons garbage is dumped everyday on the landfill that is 36 hectares and 40 meters deep.
Koshe, Amharic for garbage, has been the city’s dumping ground for over 50 years. An estimated 500 waste pickers call Koshe home, scavenging for food and salvaging items for sale. The majority of the victims live in makeshift shelters.
A new landfill built on the other side of the city faced opposition from residents, forcing city administrators resume dumping at Koshe, which experts had warned was a disaster in the making.
The increasing number of the urban poor and the death of dozens of squatters at the site of a landfill fall in sharp contrast to the double digit development narrative of a regime that boasts of miraculous achievement in economic progress.
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