Prime
Landslides: Evacuate locals before it’s too late
Locals from Katebwa sub county in Bunyangabu District at the scene where the mudslide that killed four people occurred on May 2, 2024. PHOTO | ALEX ASHABA
What you need to know:
- The issue: Landslides.
- Our view: A cry by officials from OPM has always been limited funding. We appeal to the government to set aside enough money to deal with prevention and response to these disasters.
On May 9, disaster struck Kasese District when a morning downpour resulted in landslides that left destruction in their wake, claiming scores of lives.
The debacle claimed 10 lives, bringing the total number of those killed in one week to 13. Most of the victims died after houses collapsed on them.
The separate incidents occurred across various sub-counties in the district that remains vulnerable to both landslides and flooding. In September 2022, sixteen people lost their lives at Kasika Trading Centre in a landslide.
In 2021, government released the first national risk and vulnerability atlas showing parts of the country that are prone to natural disasters.
The atlas identified seven types of disasters that strike diverse parts of the country in different seasons. They include floods, drought, lightning, earthquakes, landslides, hailstorms and windstorms.
Nine districts, including Bunyangabu, Kasese, Bulambuli, Kabarole, Napak, Moroto, Bududa, Butaleja and Mbale, have in the recent past experienced unexpected natural disasters such as floods, landslides, earthquakes, hailstorms and lightning.
Between January and November 2023, Uganda lost at least 1,066 lives in natural and man-made calamities.
But despite the wealth of data showing the most vulnerable areas during particular seasons, Uganda continues to lose lives to natural disasters.
A value-for-money audit by the Auditor General (AG) last year revealed that the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) mishandled numerous natural disasters, which led to the death of 500 people and loss of properties worth billions of shillings in three years.
The natural disaster deaths, the AG said, could have been avoided if the OPM had handled the disasters well through early warnings and timely responses in places where they occurred.
It is our appeal that the various government agencies, with the benefit of the studies and trends what we have witnessed in the recent past, come together and respond to these disasters in a timely way.
A cry by officials from OPM has always been limited funding. We appeal to the government to set aside enough money to deal with prevention and response to these disasters. The government does not have to take a week to come to the rescue of communities that have lost lives and entire livelihoods.
We also appeal to government to fast-track the relocation of people in these landslide-prone areas. Efforts have been made in the past, but due to many reasons, people end up going back to their disaster-prone homes.
Finally, there should be adequate early warning mechanisms to alert communities of looming calamities.
