Mom grieves for girl lost in the mud
Source: Agencies |
March 4, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN Beatrice Nabuduwa's 12-year-old daughter failed to come home after school, the mother assumed her child had stayed over at an aunt's because of the heavy rainfall.
Now the girl is among the hundreds of missing after mudslides engulfed the Ugandan village.
"In the morning I was shocked to learn that the whole village was under mud," the mother said in Nametsi, where mud debris towered more than 16 feet high in some places. "I have failed to find her or her body."
Rescuers in the remote corner of eastern Ugandan used hand tools yesterday to dig through the thick rivers of mud that left more than 50 students missing under the debris and buried worshippers as they prayed in a church.
The president swooped into the villages by helicopter and ordered remaining residents to move away from the sliding hillsides. Military helicopters soon began to airlift them.
At least four people were plucked alive from the wreckage yesterday, two days after the mudslides began, but more than 250 are missing, said Kevin Nabutuwa of the Uganda Red Cross. The confirmed death toll stood at 86.
People wailed and wept in the village of Nametsi as rescuers dug through mud more than 5 meters high that had buried most structures here. Police, soldiers and aid workers worked to recover bodies in villages that are a three-hour walk from a main highway.
President Yoweri Museveni said some of the tragedy could be blamed on the fact people had settled in the flood valley of the nearby River Manafa, and because farmers had stripped the land clear of thick plant life that better retains water.
Rescuers recovered the body of a 12-year-old girl who was among a group of more than 50 missing students, Nabutuwa said. After the rains began on Monday, village elders advised students from Nametsi's school not to go home but seek shelter in the village hospital.
When the mudslides came, the hospital too was buried.
Now the girl is among the hundreds of missing after mudslides engulfed the Ugandan village.
"In the morning I was shocked to learn that the whole village was under mud," the mother said in Nametsi, where mud debris towered more than 16 feet high in some places. "I have failed to find her or her body."
Rescuers in the remote corner of eastern Ugandan used hand tools yesterday to dig through the thick rivers of mud that left more than 50 students missing under the debris and buried worshippers as they prayed in a church.
The president swooped into the villages by helicopter and ordered remaining residents to move away from the sliding hillsides. Military helicopters soon began to airlift them.
At least four people were plucked alive from the wreckage yesterday, two days after the mudslides began, but more than 250 are missing, said Kevin Nabutuwa of the Uganda Red Cross. The confirmed death toll stood at 86.
People wailed and wept in the village of Nametsi as rescuers dug through mud more than 5 meters high that had buried most structures here. Police, soldiers and aid workers worked to recover bodies in villages that are a three-hour walk from a main highway.
President Yoweri Museveni said some of the tragedy could be blamed on the fact people had settled in the flood valley of the nearby River Manafa, and because farmers had stripped the land clear of thick plant life that better retains water.
Rescuers recovered the body of a 12-year-old girl who was among a group of more than 50 missing students, Nabutuwa said. After the rains began on Monday, village elders advised students from Nametsi's school not to go home but seek shelter in the village hospital.
When the mudslides came, the hospital too was buried.
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