Gofa Region, Ethiopia – For days, Professor Meazza Tadello held out hope that his missing wife might still be alive.
Barefoot and shaken, the frail 66-year-old watched younger volunteers dig through the forest and the ground for survivors in his village in Ethiopia's Gofa region.
“I went out of the house to look for household items in the nearby market, and I suspected that I had been hit by a landslide,” Tadillo, a resident of the village of Dali, told Al Jazeera Net, her clothes and bare bones covered in slices.
The first disaster struck last Sunday, days after heavy rains in the mountainous south triggered deadly landslides that destroyed homes and people.
Logo depois and residents and chegaram police to help. More landslides in the second exhibition include more people, including rescue equipment.
O Irmao de Tadello was among the volunteers who were helping.
“When I go out myself and look for (my wife) at the landslide site, she dies too,” he told Al Jazeera, looking devastated.
Like most of the villages, Tadello hasn't slept all week. When someone dies, she feels sad and anxious, and sheds tears whenever a tragedy occurs.
The Ethiopian authorities say no less. 257 people There is no catastrophe, but the death toll, which the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expects to double to 500 people.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are fears of further landslides and that approximately 15,500 people in the area will be affected by the landslide, including at least 1,320 children under the age of five and 5,293 pregnant and lactating women.
And not on Sunday, a week after the tragedy, the mourning of women and crying children will continue, as most local men dig frantically, searching for hundreds of their loved ones who died and were buried in the flames. Authorities said the search would continue throughout the weekend.
In the mountainous area, heavy machinery cannot reach the area. So, dozens of people dug all day from the second gallery, digging themselves, searching for the missing with the help of rogues and crooks.
“To me, Sea Foy”
Almaz Tadessay, the most troubled person in the house for 30 years, sent us her most comforting hugs.
Tadessay said she lost her seven children in just seconds.
From his mud home in the mountain town of Dali, he watched his family be swallowed by a tsunami of mud at Manha's second exhibition.
They were returning home from church when the disaster struck. She had stayed home that day, but now she didn't want to do anything else.
“Death would be better than living, given the amount of pain he is facing now,” Almaz told Al Jazeera.
A field located at the top of a hill, usually used to host religious and national celebrations, where people gather at the fifth gallery to attend the funeral of the dead.
The local government quickly organized the ceremony, which included hundreds of villagers, including those who brought the bodies on donkeys and carts to see them buried.
In the makeshift mourning area, several people secure photos of their missing relatives, while materials are delivered to help those affected by the landslides. On one side of the field, the dead are buried in unmarked graves.
No, Tamin Ayili, 54, was also in mourning.
Ailey lost his family of four – including his newborn baby, who ran to find his injuries after the first wave of landslides.
The 17-year-old boy was busy digging with his hands to help locate his family when the second earth slid or he was buried alive.
Days later, with no trace of her son, or in mourning, Aiel was now convinced that he too was dead.
“My son was just like him, but he had aspirations of going to college,” Ayele said.
“He worked hard and studied hard and should have been the first (in the family) to go to university, but now he's gone,” he added, crying.
“a huge loss”
Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, has two The highest in the world Economic growth taxes and is considered one of the fastest growing economies in the region.
However, in the remote village of Dali, residents are distressed by the glaring attacks of poverty that are still widespread.
Here, about 320 kilometres southwest of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, facilities are scarce, residents live in mud huts, infrastructure is deserted and there are no paved roads.
The inability to get aid in time, according to local residents, makes rescue efforts more difficult.
Cruz Vermelha Itupe was only able to reach the building on July 23, with four trucks carrying vital supplies, according to a statement from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Given the strong winds and difficult landscape, there are “significant challenges in actually reaching the affected areas,” according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed post Nor X said on the third day that he was “deeply saddened by the huge loss,” adding that a federal disaster prevention task force had been dispatched to the area and was working to mitigate the impact of the disaster. But, secondly, locals would never stay by force. Abe, who made a brief visit to a disaster-stricken village with his wife on Saturday, planted a tree at the cemetery in a show of solidarity.
The government is set to finalise plans to relocate affected residents, with more than 5,600 vulnerable people set to be evacuated immediately, OCHA announced at the sixth briefing.
Currently, more than 500 people have been displaced, while locals say there are many people trying to rescue the missing.
Lacking adequate equipment and professional help, the villagers spend days digging through the rubble with whatever they can improvise – including more, more, more.
On the fifth day, while we were digging hard, young prisoners from a nearby detention center were also recruited to assist in our rescue efforts.
Meanwhile, despite assurances from local authorities, the search for survivors has had only limited success.
Increase in landslides
Landslides have become a common phenomenon throughout the greater Horn of Africa region, with experts blaming rapid deforestation in mountainous areas as the main cause.
In May 2016, about 50 people died in a series of strong winds and landslides, and some experts linked the extreme weather events to climate change.
Resident Professor Tadello was well aware of the 2016 landslide and the devastation it left behind.
Having lived here for 45 years, he said he always expected this tragedy to happen, but his efforts to alert local authorities about possible mitigation measures were fruitless.
And now he's being beaten by Neso.
Tadillo knows his brother is missing and waits anxiously for news of his wife.
But like spending two days, he knows his chances of being safe are slim.
At night, Tadillo said he battles insomnia because he can't avoid remembering the natural disaster that destroyed his life.
Yet, along with other villages, he still waits – armed only with hope and courage – digging through the rubble at will, in a desperate attempt to find at least two of his loved ones alive.
“I just hope I find what I need to keep going,” Tadillo said.
This piece was published in collaboration with Positive.
