Another landslide disaster looms in Bududa
A young boy, one of the survivors of the Bududa landslides which claimed about 300 lives last week tries to roast green bananas. Crops and animals where also destroyed. Various authorities are issuing more warning of imminent landslides.
What you need to know:
Sounds of cracking rocks can be heard several meters away from the hill- official
Bududa
Another landslide is reportedly looming in Bududda as the crack in one of the hills overlooking Nametsi village, where more than 300 people died last week continues to widen, an official has said.
Maj. Gen Julius Oketta, the coordinator of disaster response in the office of the Prime Minister, says the hill currently home to hundreds of people has developed a bigger crack which has been triggered off by more heavy rains.
“What we have seen today is that the other crack we saw the other day has again widened so it means that if more rain falls, there is a possibility that this hill can crack. My humble appeal to all the elements in the Bugisu sub region especially Bududa and Manafwa and other areas, should watch out. Let the district leaders be more alert and warn the local authorities. We shouldn’t wait until it falls," Gen Oketta warned.
He added that cracking sounds probably of breaking rocks can be heard several meters away from the hill.
On Monday, the Uganda Wildlife Authority warned that if people on the slopes of Mount Elgon did not conserve the area around the mountain, they are at a risk of suffering more devastating landslides.
Further warning came on Wednesday with experts warning that if invasive human activity around the mountain is not halted, more landslides will occur.
A team of local leaders led by Wilson Watira, the LC5 Chairperson of Bududa, has been on a mobilization tour encouraging people living in high risk areas, to relocate to the temporally resettlement center. But most of the people living up on the mountain are not willing to be relocated. The government is currently looking for more that shs200 billion to buy land and resettle more than 500,000 people presently living in "high risk areas" countrywide.
55-year-old Wilson Wanangudu, is one of the hundreds of people that have refused to relocate to outside Mt. Elgon region insisting that he has lived there for many years.
