Garbage Heap Collapse Buries Homes, Kills at Least 30 in Disaster

At least 30 people died Sunday in Guinea after a huge landslide tore through a sprawling open-air landfill, sending a mountain of waste crashing onto nearby shacks and trapping victims under piles of garbage.

The disaster unfolded at the Dar Es Salam dumpsite in Conakry, the capital of the West African nation and home to its largest waste disposal site, The Associated Press reported.

According to Guinea News, the sheer weight of the accumulated refuse caused a three-story building beneath the dump to collapse.

Officials said heavy rain overnight had swept across the garbage heap, further destabilizing the landfill and creating dangerous conditions, according to the AP.

Reports said six people suffered serious injuries and several homes were destroyed. Emergency crews and local residents began a search-and-rescue operation in hopes of finding survivors beneath the debris.

The landfill had been due to shut down Sunday after authorities warned it was unsafe, the AP reported, citing Lt. Col. Baldé Mamadou Bailo, sanitation officer for the military engineering battalion.

That decision came after previous reports of a similar incident at the Dar Es Salam landfill in recent years, fueling longstanding concerns over the site’s safety.

As a precautionary measure, residents who lived near the site had also been given eviction notices and were forced to vacate the area, the AP said.

However, many people remained nearby at the time of the disaster, according to reports.

“We will ensure that the remaining families are relocated elsewhere,” Dienabou Touré, the minister of territorial administration and decentralization, said at the scene, according to the AP.

Reuters reported that the landfill suffered a similar incident in 2017, when torrential rains caused a mudslide that killed at least eight people.