39 missing as death toll from Uganda garbage landslide rises to 26

People look on as an excavator as it searches for people trapped under debris after a landfill collapsed in Kampala on August 10, 2024. [AFP]

At least 39 people are still missing following a massive garbage landslide in the Ugandan capital Kampala at the weekend that has claimed 26 lives so far, police said Wednesday.

The dumpsite in the northern district of Kiteezi collapsed on Saturday after heavy rains, burying people, homes and livestock in mountains of fetid rubbish.

"Thirty-nine people were registered as missing," Kampala metropolitan police spokesman Patrick Onyango said, adding that the death toll had risen to 26.

"These include 35 community members and four garbage collectors," he said, drawing information from a preliminary recovery operation.

An official previously said that at least five children were among those killed.

Excavators have been churning through the huge rubbish mounds as the desperate search for survivors continues following the collapse.

Several areas in Uganda and other parts of East Africa have been battered by heavy rains recently, including Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent.

Devastating mudslides in a remote mountainous area in southern Ethiopia last month killed around 250 people.