A landslide at a major landfill in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, has killed at least 30 people after heavy rains caused a huge pile of rubbish to collapse onto nearby homes.
The collapse happened at about 3am on Sunday in the Dar-es-Salam neighbourhood of the capital’s Bbessia district. Several makeshift homes near the landfill were buried under tonnes of waste and earth.
Guinea’s government said six people were seriously injured in the disaster.
Residents and rescue workers have been searching through the debris for survivors and victims. Excavators were brought in to help clear the collapsed waste, while recovered bodies were taken to a morgue.
Lancine Sylla, head of the Dar-es-Salam suburb, said rescuers had recovered 18 bodies during the initial search and warned that the death toll could rise.
Guinea’s Minister for Territorial Administration, Djenabou Toure, visited the site and said authorities were waiting for search and rescue operations to be completed before confirming the final number of casualties.
The landfill had already been considered dangerous. Lieutenant Colonel Balde Mamadou Bailo, a sanitation officer with the Military Engineering Battalion, said the site had been designated for closure on Sunday.
Authorities had also recently ordered people living near the landfill to leave and introduced safety measures because of concerns that the large waste pile could collapse.
The disaster comes after heavy rainfall in the region, which weakened the landfill and triggered the landslide.
Rescue operations are continuing as authorities search the site for people who may still be trapped beneath the debris.
