IBANDA LANDSLIDES FORCE RDC TO CLOSE STONE QUARRY

By Elly  Karenzi

In Ibanda–    

Ibanda Resident District Commissioner; Eliasto Akatuheebwa  together with security operatives and staff of environment have ordered the immediate closure of a quarry at Mabanga hill in Ibanda  municipal where residents have been mining stones.

This follows the last Sunday landslide in Mabanga village where houses, commercial shops, abattoirs, property were destroyed and some animals and hens covered by soil.

Some of graves were stripped open by running floods and stones. The landslide was a result of heavy rain that left trees and banana plantations devastated.

The closed quarry has been a source of income to over one thousand residents who worked there. www.mknewslink.com has learnt.

“Trees prevent such disaster from happening, so I encourage you residents to embrace tree planting as one of the methods to prevent landslides and floods in this area” said Eliasto  Akatuheebwa.

Akatuheebwa visited the affected villages, and said the leaders  in the  district have appealed to Prime minister’s office for relief.

As heavy rains have started, many villages in Ibanda district have been affected with floods and landslides from hills, wind causing havoc to crops especially the banana and coffee plantations.

House roofs have been blown off where as roads made impassable hampering the delivery of services.

In Katooma cell, Ibanda municipal, the road was temporarily closed from transport vehicles and bodabodas for two days, cutting off Kamwenge district as huge stones blocked the main road from Ibanda town to Kabujogera town in Kamwenge.

Source:www.mknewslink.com

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