Photo: Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
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Deadly landslide hits Ethiopia mountain monastery during prayer service.
Fourteen people died when a hillside gave way above a mountain monastery in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region during an overnight prayer service.
Background
Landslides in the Ethiopian highlands are usually triggered by heavy rain on steep, deforested slopes, often after cultivation or building has cut into the hillside. They frequently happen at night, which is why casualty numbers are high, and they tend to recur in the same areas because the underlying cause, the combination of slope, soil and land use, does not change after an individual event. Search and rescue in mountain terrain is slow and mostly done by hand.
Why it matters here
Kenya has the same geology of risk in its highland counties, and a related version of it in Nairobi. Landslides in Murang'a, Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot have killed people in recent years under exactly these conditions. In Kibra the equivalent hazard is structural rather than geological, with buildings on unstable ground and beside drainage channels that scour during the long rains, and the pattern of a night-time collapse with people asleep inside is a familiar one.
What to watch next
Whether the death toll is revised, whether the area is assessed for further risk, and whether any relocation or slope stabilisation follows.
This story was put together by K N N from material first published by BBC News.
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Fourteen people died when a hillside gave way above a mountain monastery in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region during an overnight prayer service.
Background
Landslides in the Ethiopian highlands are usually triggered by heavy rain on steep, deforested slopes, often after cultivation or building has cut into the hillside. They frequently happen at night, which is why casualty numbers are high, and they tend to recur in the same areas because the underlying cause, the combination of slope, soil and land use, does not change after an individual event. Search and rescue in mountain terrain is slow and mostly done by hand.
Why it matters here
Kenya has the same geology of risk in its highland counties, and a related version of it in Nairobi. Landslides in Murang’a, Elgeyo Marakwet and West Pokot have killed people in recent years under exactly these conditions. In Kibra the equivalent hazard is structural rather than geological, with buildings on unstable ground and beside drainage channels that scour during the long rains, and the pattern of a night-time collapse with people asleep inside is a familiar one.
What to watch next
Whether the death toll is revised, whether the area is assessed for further risk, and whether any relocation or slope stabilisation follows.
