Landslides kill at least 68 people in Tanzania

The number of victims is expected to rise.

Rain over the weekend swept away cars and damaged buildings in the hilltop town of Katesh, 300km north of the capital Dodoma.

“We lost 63 people whose bodies are in front of us today. Among them are 23 men and 40 women,” Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said earlier on Monday during a ceremony in Katesh where the remains of the victims were handed over to their families.

“We believe we will find more bodies,” he said, adding that 116 people were injured in the disaster.

The military was assisting the search and rescue operations, as residents feared that people might have been buried under the thick mud.

Filmed images show houses in ruins, furniture strewn on the streets, roads blocked, electricity and telecommunications lines cut.

Paschal Paulo, a local resident, said that everything in the market where he worked was washed away by the floodwaters.

James Gabriel, who also worked at the market, said that his relatives were missing and the search was very intense.

Esther Bohay (Ester Bohai) said she heard a loud noise and saw how the street near her house turned into a river of mud when it rained.

She and her family managed to escape the flood.

Landslides buried at least 100 houses and flattened a village where 28 families lived, regional commissioner Queen Sendiga said.

Due to this disaster, President Samia Suluhu Hassan (Samija Suluhu Hasan) cut short her visit to Dubai, where she had come to participate in the COP28 climate talks

Tanzania and its East African neighbors Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are often hit by flash floods caused by heavy rains associated with the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The floods are adding to the humanitarian crisis in the region, which is trying to recover from the worst drought in four decades, which has left millions of people hungry.

From October 1997 to January 1998, more than 6,000 people died in five countries of the region due to large-scale floods. people.

Scientists say that climate change caused by human activities is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as floods, storms, droughts and forest fires.