Uganda: Landslides rescue - Soldiers fall sick

[Ronan Kelly]

Uganda: Landslides rescue - Soldiers fall sick
Source: The New Vision

Date: 08 Mar 2010


By Henry Mukasa

AT LEAST 20 UPDF soldiers deployed to retrieve the bodies of people buried by the landslide in Bududa have fallen sick. The soldiers have reportedly contracted diarrhoea. Maj. Gen. Julius Oketta attributes the outbreak to drinking unsafe water.

Medical officials had earlier warned of an epidemic outbreak in the landslide-hit area. Senior health ministry chiefs arrived in Bududa with a consignment of drugs for the sick soldiers. "They will contain the outbreak," Oketta said, stressing that it was not cholera.

Six more bodies were yesterday recovered after intensive digging by UPDF soldiers.

"The bodies were decomposed, swollen and the stomachs had burst," Oketta remarked. "The relatives identified them by the clothes and took them for burial."

Local leaders said 365 people were missing after the landslide. Some 93 bodies have been recovered one week after disaster struck. Only 17 people escaped the mud death trap. They are nursing various injuries in Bududa Hospital.

The army says it will only halt the hunt for bodies when the authorities tell them to stop. Bududa district chairman, Wilson Watira, said on Sunday he could not call for a stop because the residents still hope the bodies of their beloved ones can be found.

"They have camped at the site and refuse to leave," he told a meeting at the district headquarters.

A UPDF spokesperson, Capt. Henry Obbo, said heavy rains were hampering the operation.

Meanwhile, five IDPs were arrested for stealing relief items, Police commander Joel Aguma said.
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[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Uganda: Landslides rescue - Soldiers fall sick

UGANDA: Health fears follow deadly mudslides
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) (irinnews.org)

Date: 10 Mar 2010


BUKALASI , 10 March 2010 (IRIN) - Rose Nakhayetse is lucky to be alive, but her ordeal is far from over. Having narrowly escaped last week's deadly landslides in eastern Uganda, she and thousands of others are facing fresh dangers.

The 24-year-old and her nine-month-old baby were saved from a muddy avalanche by the wall of her house. "I heard cracks and sounds of explosion but when it persisted, I went outside, only to discover that the earth was moving towards us," she told IRIN.

"Things were happening so fast, so I decided to run with my baby. That is how I survived. Thank God the moving mud stopped just behind our house, but my two other boys were in the neighbourhood and I have not seen them since. Maybe they are among those who died, but we have not found their bodies," she said.

Ninety-two bodies have been recovered from the scene of the disaster, and some 367 people are still missing, according to Ugandan officials.

Nakhayetse is one of more than 1,000 people camping in the grounds and four classrooms of a primary school in the village of Bukalasi, where relief efforts have yet to meet the many needs of the displaced. There is a single pit latrine for all of them.

"The numbers here are too big and we do not have enough toilets, so that is making this place dirty," she said.

Sanitary crisis

"A sanitary epidemic is in the offing [in Bukalasi]," warned David Mulele, a medical worker in the local health centre.

"We have recorded up to 100 cases of diarrhoea and vomiting among children and some adults. The health centre had drug stocks, but now all essential drugs for such ailments, like oral rehydration salts, Flagyl and other such drugs have all run out and we are just improvising to keep these people going," Mulele told IRIN.

"We have the skills, but we lack the tools."

Among the immediate humanitarian needs are "safe drinking water, water storage containers, water purification/chlorination tablets, latrines and soap", according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"Other urgent needs include: trucking of water to the affected populations; drilling of boreholes and rehabilitation of water springs; completion and extension of a gravity water flow scheme in Bulucheke; water quality surveillance; and provision of mobile and Ecosan toilets," OCHA said in a report.

Also required is specific assistance for some of the children who came to the camp without their parents, who are among the missing or dead.

"We have no arrangements yet for these unaccompanied minors," said Kevin Nabutuwa of the Uganda Red Cross Society.

Patrick Tibet, a community development worker in Bukalasi, said the displaced were in dire need of shelter and clothing as many had run away from their homes with only the clothes they had on.

Nabutuwa said tents had been secured from the government and would be distributed.

Rain risk continues

Heavy rainfall is set to continue in parts of Uganda for several weeks, prompting the government to consider permanently relocating up to half a million people living in mountainous regions.

"A total population of about 500,000 is at risk of landslides and floods. We plan to resettle this population from these very high-risk locations both in the east and west of the country, once emergency operations for the current situation end," Junior Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru told IRIN by phone.

The rains have flooded many villages near Bukalasi. According to OCHA, many crops and infrastructure, such as roads and schools, in the low-lying Butaleja district are under water.

"In the sub-counties of Budumba, Busaba, Nawanju, Busolwe, Busabi and Busolwe Town Council, thousands of acres of paddy rice fields, cassava, sweet potatoes, maize, sorghum, millet and vegetables - the major source of livelihood - have been affected by water, translating into an-as-yet undetermined loss of crop yield," according to the OCHA report.

"In total, as many as 20,000 households may have been affected by the disaster with 1,000 households (6,000 people) of immediate concern," it said.

OCHA warned that some 15,000 households risked waterborne diseases because of submerged pit latrines. "Additionally, Doho Health Centre II in Mazimasa sub-county and Namulo Health Centre II in Himutu sub-county are surrounded by water and have been rendered inaccessible," the report said.

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