More than 200 people have been killed in two landslides in southern Ethiopia, authorities said.
The first landslide, triggered by heavy rains in a remote region of Gofa zone, occurred on Monday and was followed by a second one that buried people who had gathered to help, state officials said on Tuesday.
At least 148 men and 81 women were killed after the disaster struck in the Kencho-Shacha locality in the Gofa Zone on Monday, the local Communications Affairs Department said in a statement.
Alemayehu Bawdi, Southern Regional State representative, confirmed the death toll and said “search and rescue efforts are ongoing”.
Five people were pulled alive from the mud and were receiving treatment at medical facilities, the government-owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) reported earlier.
It cited local administrator Dagemawi Ayele as saying that most of those killed were buried after they went to help the inhabitants of a house hit by an initial landslide.
“Those who rushed for live-saving work have perished in the disaster including the locality’s administrator, teachers, health professionals and agricultural professionals,” EBC quoted Dagemawi as saying.
Gofa is part of the state known as the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), located about 320km (199 miles) southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa.
Kemal Hashi Mohamoud, a parliamentarian, told Al Jazeera from Addis Ababa that the second landslide happened “a few minutes” after the first. “People are preparing shelter and giving them food,” he said.
Images shared on social media by the state-affiliated media outlet Fana Broadcasting Corporate showed hundreds of people near the devastating scene of tumbled soil, using their hands to dig through the dirt.
The state has been battered by the short seasonal rains between April and May that caused flooding and mass displacement, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
It said in May that “floods impacted over 19,000 people in several zones, displacing over a thousand and causing damage to livelihoods and infrastructure”.
The southern region has experienced landslides previously, with at least 32 people killed in 2018 after two separate incidents within a week of each other.
The flooding and landslides occurred even as other parts of the country are facing severe drought, which has prompted traditional herding communities to explore alternative food production methods.
The UN reports that millions in the country face malnutrition due to recent climate-related challenges.
