257 Died in Ethiopia, 151 in India Landslides, While Wildfires Ravage US
The first disaster struck last Sunday, after days of torrential rains in the mountainous southern region triggered a deadly landslide that swept away houses and people.
Soon after, locals and police officers arrived to help. But another landslide on Monday swept even more people, including rescuers, away.
Ethiopian authorities say at least 257 people perished in the disaster, a death toll the United Nations’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, expects to more or less double to 500.
According to OCHA, more landslides are feared, and some 15,500 people in the area are at risk of being affected, including at least 1,320 children under the age of five and 5,293 pregnant and lactating women.
The mountainous region has made it nearly impossible for heavy machinery to reach the area. So dozens of people have been digging away throughout the day since Monday, excavating by hand, searching for the missing with the help of spades and pickaxes.
Here, about 320km (199 miles) southwest of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, facilities are scarce, residents live in mud huts, infrastructure is desolate and no roads are paved.
In India Rescuers Search Through Debris as Deaths Rise to 151 in Multiple Landslides
Another 186 people were injured by the landslides that hit hilly areas in Kerala state’s Wayanad district early Tuesday, flattening houses, uprooting trees and destroying bridges, said police officer Aijaz, who uses one name.
More than a dozen bodies were found overnight, as over 300 rescuers worked to pull out people stuck under mud and debris, but blocked roads and unstable terrain hampered their efforts.
The first landslide occurred at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, followed by another two hours later. Several areas, including Meppadi, Mundakkai and Chooralmala, were isolated, and roads were washed away causing immense damage to homes, said Kerala’s top elected official, Pinarayi Vijayan.
Meanwhile, more than 8,300 people have been moved to 82 government-run relief camps. The government is ensuring food delivery and essential items to the relief camps.
The Indian Meteorological Department said the state has had heavy rainfall over its northern and central regions, with Wayanad district recording up to 28 centimeters (11 inches) of rain on Monday and Tuesday.
Latest reports from the United States show 95 large active wildfires have burned 2,180,105 acres in the US
So far in 2024, 28,154 wildfires have burned 4,449,282 acres. People have caused more than 25,000 wildfires that have burned nearly 3 million acres. Lightning ignited about 2,740 wildfires and burned 1.1 million acres.
Nearly 28,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are assigned to wildfires, including 27 complex and 5 Type 1 incident management teams, 613 crews, 1,781 engines, 164 helicopters, and four Modular Airborne patterns, it is reported have increasingly become erratic and the quantum of rainfall that were received in a short spell of time has also increased