(English) August 10, 2013
A four-year-old child has been confirmed dead after a hailstorm Saturday ravaged several villages causing multiple mudslides and floods in Bushiyi sub-county in Bududa district.
By Joseph Wanzusi and Paul Watala
At least 17 other injured persons have been admitted to Bududa Hospital. Bududa LC5 chairman John Baptist Nambeshe identified the child as John Mangoye, the son of Stephen Waninga a resident of Matuwa parish. The child’s body was found buried under a heap of hailstones.
Nambeshe said an unspecified number mostly children, the elderly and disabled were still unaccounted for and feared dead. He said the affected area was by 6.00 p.m not accessible after River Manafwa burst its banks destroying gardens and flooding several homesteads in the landslide prone district.
He said the ferocious water of River Manafwa has also destroyed the Bukigai- Nalwanza bridge that was constructed recently at a cost of Sh320m under the Peace Recovery and Development Programme (PRDP) funds. He said over 10,000 people may require urgent resettlement as more details of the disaster come to light.
Nambeshe appealed to the office of the Prime Minister to implement the urbanization resettlement programme in the district as agreed upon by government, district leaders and the affected communities.
According to a principal nursing officer at Bududa hospital Zeles Nabusayi Wakubona, among those admitted is a 55-year-old Peretina Nabifo of Namirumba village who was hit on the chest after the walls of the house in which she took shelter crumbled and hit her on the chest.
Wakubona who said the hospital ambulance had gone to pick more injured people from Bushibuya Trading Centre about a kilometer away from the disaster area identified the injured children as Anjela Nabushawo, Derrick Kutosi, Justine Nafuna, Newumbe and Watsemba.
Bulucheke sub-county LC 5 councillor Geoffrey Natubu who visited the disaster area said the badly affected villages in Bushiyi sub-county include Namirumba, Matuwa, Nabooti and Bufuuma.
It is exactly a year since the last landslide, where according to Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS), eight people were buried at Bunakasala parish in Bududa district in June 2012.
The relief body URCS also established that 735 people in the disaster-stricken parish fled their homes due to the emergence of cracks while 3,368 people in the neighbouring villages in Mabayaam, Bunamulembwa, Walwayi and Bumakakha were at high risk.
Source: New Vision
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