50 children feared dead as landslide buries hospital

A hospital used by Ugandan schoolchildren to shelter from the heavy rains turned into a death trap as a landslide engulfed the building, leaving more than 50 pupils missing.

The pupils, directed to the hospital by village elders, were among hundreds feared dead as avalanches of mud slammed into three villages.

When Beatrice Nabuduwa’s 12-year-old daughter failed to come home after school on Monday, she assumed the child had stayed over at an aunt’s because of the rain.

But yesterday the grieving mother accepted the reality of the situation, and said she wished God would have taken her life instead.

“In the morning I was shocked to learn that the whole village was under mud,” she said in Nametsi, where mud debris towered more than 16ft high in some places. “I have failed to find her or her body.”

Rescuers in the remote corner of eastern Ugandan used hand tools to dig through the thick rivers of mud that engulfed the hospital and buried worshippers as they prayed in a church.

Last night workers found the bodies of six more pupils from the hospital, raising the confirmed death toll to 92, said Kevin Nabutuwa of the Uganda Red Cross.

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 were missing, said Mr Nabutuwa.

People wailed and wept in Nametsi as rescuers dug through the mud that had buried most structures. Meanwhile 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 retained water.

“We expect to recover more bodies as time goes on. But the exercise is slow because we are using hoes to dig the dead bodies out of the thick mud,” said Mr Nabutuwa.

Five bodies lay beside the dirt track leading to the village, waiting to be claimed by relatives. Scores of soldiers helped rescue efforts.

The mudslides swamped the region near the Kenyan border on Monday and Tuesday after torrents of rain pounded the mountainous region. Known as Bududa, it lies 170 miles east of Kampala, the capital.

Shopkeeper Michael Nabude said he saw a patch of mud slide down a mountain and fearing a landslide, he sent his family away. Then he watched in horror from afar as a wall of mud slammed into his village, burying it and dozens of people.

The region has long suffered from landslides but rarely has the death toll been so high.

Mr Museveni ordered villagers in the region to leave the area in case rain triggered more landslides.