How floods, mudslides have tormented Kasese for 13 years

Vital infrastructure, including bridges, schools, and health centres, lies in ruins, isolating some communities from essential services.

Residents brace for each rainy season with dread, hoping against hope that the flooding is not severe.

One of the most deadly landslides in recent times occurred in 2022 in Kasika village, Kigoro Parish in Rukoki Sub-county where it claimed 16 lives. Mudslides on May 9, 2024, resulted in 10 deaths across several sub-counties in a single day. Other fatalities have ranged from one to four in various areas where the disasters occur.

The district is vulnerable to floods and landslides.

The floods from River Lhubiriha in Bukonzo West have devastated the sub-counties of Kitholhu, Karambi, Ihandiro, and Mpondwe-Lhubiriha Town Council. 

In Bukonzo East, floods from rivers Nyamugasani and Ryembyo have severely impacted Kyarumba and Kisinga-Kagando town councils, along with Kisinga Sub-county.

For years, flooding from rivers Mubuku and Sebwe has also ravaged Maliba, Bugogye, and Karusandara sub-counties, as well as the town councils of Ibanda Kyanya, Kisinga, Kyarumba, and Mubuku.

These events have led to substantial losses in agriculture, livestock, and both private and government infrastructure, including schools, health facilities, and essential services. Kilembe Mines Hospital, a critical health facility in the area, has faced multiple closures since 2013 due to flooding.

Recent tragedies

In September and October 2024, floods claimed four lives, raising the death toll to 17 since May this year.

On October 26, two children, Linate Muhindo (11) and her two-year-old brother, Lodrick Kambale, drowned in the flooded River Sebwe when they attempted to cross on their way back home.

Mr Soroza Ikanga, the deceased’s relative, said floods are common in the lowlands whenever it rains heavily upstream.

On September 7, Masika Teopista, 40, and Mumbere Bright, 28 drowned in River Nyamwamba. Teopista, a nurse at Canope Medical Centre, was swept away while taking photos of the rising water, and Mumbere, an employee at a washing bay, drowned when the ground beneath him collapsed.

Another tragic incident that claimed 10 lives was on May 9. Lt Maate Magwara, the Kasese deputy RDC overseeing Bukonzo County, said nine bodies were retrieved from debris at different locations after mudslides in three sub-counties. Another person died in Kilembe Sub-county.

The affected areas were Muwanza and Kaghema villages in Kyarumba Sub-county; Bumbahya Village in Kyondo Sub-county and Kanyatsi Village in Nyakabingo Sub-county.

That incident happened in the same week three family members died after a mudslide hit the house they were staying in.

Numerous properties, including bridges, roads, and schools, were destroyed and remain unrepaired due to a lack of funding, according to district officials

The recent bridge that was partly washed away is Nkoko, connecting Karusandara Sub-county in Busongora South to other parts of the district. It was destroyed after River Mubuku burst its banks.

According to the report from Kasese’s Chief Administrative Office, the district has lost property totalling Shs84b over the past decade due to natural disasters.

The district senior planner, Mr Joseph Singoma, said floods and mudslides have impacted all sectors, including Shs5b loss of property in education and Shs32b in health sector, with Kilembe Mines Hospital the biggest loss.

Damages to the works and transport sector are estimated at Shs17b, with the water sector, community-based services, agriculture, and natural resources facing additional multi-billion shilling losses.

More than 3,000 acres of farmland have been destroyed, leaving an estimated 80 percent of the district’s population, which relies heavily on agriculture, facing food shortages.

The 2020 disaster preliminary findings indicated damages included 32 classrooms, 24 five-stance pit-latrines, 419 three-seater wooden desks, 12 girls' washrooms, and instructional teaching and learning materials.

Also, a 147.5km road network, 17 bridges, four health facilities, 34 boreholes, 98 springs, and 30 wells, and 1,462 acres of cash and food crops were destroyed.

A report from the Office of the Prime Minister on the September 6 floods shows that 10 villages were affected by River Nyamwamba’s flooding, displacing 1,132 people from 1,469 households. Additionally, seven schools suffered damage, with 19 classrooms destroyed, 74 crop fields ruined, 173 latrines washed away, and more than five kilometres of roads damaged.

Mr Eliphaz Muhindi, the district chairperson, said disasters have left the district in a bad state yet they do not have adequate resources to repair damaged infrastructure.

Mr Muhindi explained that they have since requested the central government to prioritise machinery that can help the district to de-silt the rivers prone to flooding periodically.

“Once we get these machines and are stationed here, we shall be able to manage the situation because when the Canadians who mined copper in Kilembe were still here, they used to de-silt River Nyamwamba regularly and they also had an early warning system and whenever there would be a problem, people would be alerted,” he said.

Mr Richard Bomera, the chairperson of Bulembia Division in Kasese Municipality, said Kilembe Mines has lost more than 200 houses that initially hosted the company workers.

However, he expressed optimism that when the government secures another developer for Kilembe Mines, the problem will be solved.

“We are sure that when Kilembe Mines Company is revived, it will also help in maintaining parts of the River Nyamwamba and this will eventually control floods like it used to be in the 1980s”, Mr Bomera said.

Mr David Rujumba, the acting district engineer, said more than 11 bridges are still in a sorry state after the 2020 floods, forcing the locals to erect wooden bridges across various rivers.

He said they are still waiting for the government’s response on the supplementary budget of Shs58b they made after the 2020 floods, which was intended for the reconstruction and repair of destroyed and damaged infrastructure.

Kilembe Mines Hospital was forced to relocate temporarily in 2020 after sustaining substantial damage due to floods.

Despite returning to operate in the remaining structures in 2022, government funding and staff were withdrawn in 2023.

The Minister for Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, said the plan is to upgrade Rukoki Health Centre IV to a general hospital to replace Kilembe Mines Hospital. However, local leaders have petitioned President Museveni, demanding the hospital’s reinstatement, but no progress has been made.

Other health centres that were affected by floods include Kilembe Health Centre II, Kanamba Health Centre III, and Karusandara Health Centre III, which were partially destroyed in 2020 and no rehabilitation has ever been done on them.

Residents across Kasese District have urged the government to take action, fearing that these disasters will continue to claim lives if left unchecked.

Mr Zironi Bwambale Mulemba lost three of his children and two other people when a mudslide struck his house in Mahango Village, Bukonzo County East, in October 2011.

He said memories of that night still haunt him.

“At around 3am, I heard a loud noise. When I checked, I was met with the devastation of the upper part of my four-room house. I realised that my three children, my sister, and our visitor, all sleeping in that room, had perished despite there having been no rain,” Mr Mulemba said.

Following the tragedy, he relocated with his wife and their two surviving children to Kyanzababiri Village in Kyondo Sub-county in 2012.

“A disaster disconnected me from the place where I was born and grew up. Moving to a new community was painful and difficult for my family and me,” Mr Mulemba said.

Ms Sarah Mukasa, who lost her brother in the 2014 floods, said: “It has been a painful journey seeing our loved ones taken by the floods and our homes washed away. Every rainy season, we live in fear, wondering if we will be next.”