A landslide at a waste site in Guinea early on Sunday has killed 30 people and injured several others after heavy rains caused a mound of rubbish to collapse, government officials reported.
The landslide buried nearby tens and shacks and destroyed several homes as rescuers and excavators were searching through the debris at the collapsed landfill as part of a search-and-rescue operation.
At least six other people were seriously injured.
“Significant material and human resources have been deployed to search for any people who may still be buried, to rescue the victims and to recover the bodies,” a statement by the government said.
The necessary measures were taken to “ensure medical care for the wounded” and “assistance for those affected by the tragedy,” the statement added.
The heavy rain started pouring down early on Sunday morning, washing over the refuse at Dar Es Salam—Conakry’s largest open-air waste dump—on the outskirts of the capital.
The closure of the dumb had been recently announced, and had been designated for closure on the same Sunday as the landslide.
Days prior to the incident, residents living nearby the landfill had been given eviction orders by the government, out of fear of a collapse. Many were forced to leave, but according to local authorities, many others were still around at the time of the disaster.
“We will ensure that the remaining families are relocated elsewhere,” Dienabou Touré, the minister of territorial administration and decentralisation, said at the scene.
A resident of the Dar Es Salam neighbourhood explained to press agency AFP the efforts local residents went through to prevent a tragedy from unfolding.
“We organised sit-ins, we invited the officials from the relevant departments, but they didn’t take it seriously. So that’s why today, with this landslide, I blame the State, because it didn’t take the necessary measures to have the dump closed. And yet they had promised us that, it’s been a year now,” activist Abou Hamza explained.
Guinea is mineral-rich and holds the world’s largest deposits of bauxite, a rock that serves as a main source of aluminium. The country and also has iron ore, gold, diamonds and minerals.
However, 43.7% of the population lives below the national poverty line, according to the World Bank, with around 3.7 million out of 15.1 million people living on less than $4.20 USD (€3.60) a day.