29 killed in garbage collapse in Sri Lanka
Print Edition
RESCUERS yesterday were digging through heaps of mud and trash that collapsed onto a clutch of homes near a garbage dump outside Sri Lanka’s capital, killing at least 29 people and possibly burying dozens more.
Hundreds of people had been living in the working-class neighborhood on the fringe of the towering dump in Meetotamulla, a town near Colombo, when a huge mound collapsed Friday night during a celebration for the local new year, damaging at least 150 homes.
By yesterday morning, authorities had pulled 29 bodies from beneath the debris, according to lawyer Nuwan Bopage, who has worked with local residents to protest the dump. Authorities were unsure how many more people could still be trapped, but about 30 were reported missing, Bopage said.
Soldiers were digging with backhoes and shovels, as relatives of the missing pointed out where their houses once stood amid coconut, mango and banana trees. Those homes now lay in piles of collapsed concrete walls encased in a wall of mud up to 8 meters high and mixed with plastic bags, broken glass and other trash. Bicycles and auto-rickshaws, the three-wheeled vehicles used as local taxis, were crushed or lying topsy-turvy.
More than 600 of the area’s residents were sheltering in nearby schools, while 11 people were being treated at a hospital for injuries.
One auto-rickshaw driver described a narrow escape. He was returning home with his wife, two sons and daughter when they stepped out from his rickshaw and his daughter said the ground seemed to be moving beneath her feet.
“There was a strong wind from the side of the dump, and my daughter shouted that the mound is splitting,” Rasika Sanjeewa, 41, said yesterday. “Suddenly, one slice of the mound came crashing down. The whole area was shaking.”
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