LANDSLIDES: DOZENS FEARED DEAD, PROPERTIES DESTROYED IN KASESE

By Joel Kaguta

www.mknewslink.com

In Kasese

Over one hundred people in Mahango sub-county in Kasese District has been left mysteriously affected by landslides on Saturday evening during a down pour.

Burandia village in Nyamisule parish is the most hit area although other places like Kibalya, Butalimuli and Nyamutswa have also registered similar problems.

Among the items destroyed include houses, crops, clothes, books, mattresses and animals leaving the owners stranded without any immediate solutions to the catastrophe.

The torrential rains that started at around 9pm lasted for close to four hours resulting into mud flows which also destroyed the road networks connecting the affected areas to other places.

Bibiana Ithungu aged 38 narrated that three out of her seven children escaped death because the room in which they were sleeping in was hit by a huge mudflow immediately she had shifted them to her bed room.

She said that her two roomed house got submerged and everything in it including books of her children, sauce pans and the agreement of one of her pieces of land was destroyed.

“When I saw waters entering my bed room, I realized that my children are in danger and Immediately went and shifted them to my bed, after few minutes their bed room was hit by a huge mudflow”, Ithungu adds.

According to Ithungu, she needs over one million shillings to reconstruct the two rooms of her new permanent house that were hit by the devastating mudflow.

When our reporter visit the area, Ithungu’s husband Constantine Baluku Mbakania was found removing the debris.

Mbakania explained that he constructed the main house using a soft loan from a micro-finance organization in the area and was not aware where he will get the money to refund back and to reconstruct the damaged house.

“I don’t know where I am going to get the money to reconstruct my house in addition to the loan and school fees of my two children who are in candidate classes at St. Theresa Bwanda in Masaka”, Mbakania explained.

Jozoless Kabugho aged 48 is another resident whose main house was also severely damaged.

Kabugho noted that the mudflow mostly destroyed a room which accommodates three of her children who had not gone to sleep by the time of incident occurred.

Luzi Masika lost fifty coffee trees and 20 banana plantations when her piece of land was eroded by the landslide. Masika suspects that her family will be hit by hunger.

Patrick Masereka Zaire, the area local council one chairperson, quantified that the incident has left many residents poor.

“My office has started compiling a report to ascertain the actual number of people and properties that have been destroyed following the nasty Saturday incident”, Zaire said.

He asserts that he was going to embark on the campaign of sensitizing the community about the need to tame their building sites before they build since the steepness is slowly responsible for continuous mudflow in the area.

Commenting about the incident, the Sub-county Community Development Officer, Venesio Tsembere asked the district Disaster Committee chaired by the Assistant Chief Administrative in-charge of Bukonzo County, Wilson Asaba Mwigha to help in relocating families staying in prone landslides to safer places.

Between 2012 and 2013, seven children from two families in Butalimuli and Mahango villages respectively in Mahango sub-county were buried by landslides that befell the area.

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