Date | 11 March 2017 |
---|---|
Location | Koshe, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia |
Cause | Landslide from garbage piling |
Deaths | 115 [1] |
On 11 March 2017, a garbage landslide at the Koshe Garbage Dump in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia killed 115 people. [1] Koshe (alternatively spelled Quoshee or Repi), derived from the Amharic word for 'dirty', had hundreds of people living in unincorporated communities beneath the 50-year-old garbage dump's unstable mounds. Both shanty houses and concrete structures were built in Koshe by residents attracted to the area's cheap cost-of-living and availability of recyclables to collect for income. Destabilized by constant human interaction, a segment of one of the garbage mounds collapsed during the evening onto one of Koshe's communities.
The landslide occurred Saturday evening at 20:00 as many people were inside of their homes. [1] A large garbage mound collapsed onto a neighborhood of about 150 people, sliding into the community with enough force destroy brick and concrete structures as well as shanty houses. [2]
Garbage landslides are particularly deadly because buried victims are often quickly suffocated by landfill gases like methane and carbon dioxide, in addition to temperatures within decomposing mounds easily reaching 140 °F (60 °C) or higher. [3] Six excavators were hired by authorities to clear away rubble in the search for survivors or victims [4] Emergency officials rescued 37 people in the immediate aftermath of the landslide, but struggled to reach dozens more buried beneath the black dirt and debris. [4] Despite the inhospitable environment, another man was rescued from beneath the collapsed mound two days after the slide. Officials redeployed excavators from across Addis Ababa to help search efforts. [5]
The garbage landslide killed at least 115 people and left dozens of others missing. [6] Speculation by locals in the immediate aftermath blamed the landslides on new garbage dumping in the area after a several-year cessation, [4] and bulldozers used in construction of a nearby biogas plant for packing down and shaking the area's dirt, possibly destabilizing the garbage mounds in the process. [6]
The response to the landslide by Ethiopia's government underscored public outrage over the impoverished conditions of Koshe, prompting policy changes in housing and construction. [7] Ethiopia's Communications Minister Negeri Lencho announced the creation of investigative committee had been created to determine the cause of the landslide. [1] 56 families were moved to temporary government housing in Koshe's Nifas Silk Sub-City and Kolfe Keranio Sub-City as part of resettlement efforts with plans to eventually permanently resettle them. [8] Additionally, plans were made to convert the disaster site into an open-air park. [9] But Koshe's makeshift communities remained populated when another landslide struck in June 2019, killing a man. [10]
The politics of Ethiopia are the activities associated with the governance of Ethiopia. The government is structured as a federal parliamentary republic with both a President and Prime Minister. The legislature is multicameral, with a house of representatives and a council. The term politics of Ethiopia mainly relates to the political activities in Ethiopia after the late 20th century when democratization took place in the nation. The current political structure of Ethiopia was formed after the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) overthrew dictator President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. A general election was held in June 1994 and Ethiopia has maintained a multiparty political environment until today.
Oromia is a regional state in Ethiopia and the homeland of the Oromo people. Under Article 49 of Ethiopian Constitution, the capital of Oromia is Addis Ababa, also called Finfinne. The provision of the article maintains special interest of Oromia by utilizing social services and natural resources of Addis Ababa.
The Payatas landslide was a garbage dump collapse at Payatas, Quezon City, Philippines, on July 10, 2000. A large pile of garbage first collapsed and then went up in flames which resulted in the destruction of about 100 squatters' houses.
The following is a historical events of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, including its formation prior to 20th century by chronology.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Ethiopia.
The 2014–2016 Oromo protests were a series of protests and resistance first sparked on 25 April 2014. The initial actions were taken in opposition to the Addis Ababa Master Plan, and resumed on 12 November 2015 by university students and farmers in the town of Ginchi, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa, encircled by the Oromia region. The plan was to expand the capital into the Oromia special zone, leading to fears that native Oromo farmers would lose their land and be displaced. The plan was later dropped but protests continued, highlighting issues such as marginalization and human rights. Mulatu Gemechu, deputy chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, expressed to Reuters: "so far, we have compiled a list of 33 protesters killed by armed security forces that included police and soldiers but I am very sure the list will grow". Protesters demanded social and political reforms, including an end to human rights abuses like government killings of civilians, mass arrests, government land seizures, and political marginalization of opposition groups. The government responded by restricting access to the internet and attacking as well as arresting protesters.
Qoshee also known as Koshe is a large open landfill which receives rubbish and waste from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The name means "dirty" in Amharic.
The following lists events in the year 2017 in Ethiopia.
The Meethotamulla landslide was a garbage landslide of a section of the large dump at Meethotamulla in the Colombo District of Sri Lanka.
The 2005 Leuwigajah landslide was a landslide that killed 143 people in Indonesia. The Leuwigajah landfill serving the cities of Cimahi and Bandung in West Java, Indonesia experienced a catastrophic garbage landslide on 21 February 2005 when the face of a large, almost-vertical garbage mound collapsed after days of rain. The slide tore through informal neighborhoods set up by individuals within the landfill for the purpose of collecting recyclables, where it killed 143 people and injured many more.
The Burayu massacre was a series of communal clashes which occurred in the vicinity of the Ethiopian town of Burayu, in the Oromia Region, on 14–16 September 2018. Individuals from the Oromo and Dorze ethnicities fought in and around Burayu, a town in Oromia Region which is located near the northwest boundary of Addis Ababa, the federal capital. Different sources cite number of civilians killed both from Oromo and non-Oromo ethnicity.
A October 2019 Ethiopian clashes was a civil unrest that broke out in Addis Ababa, on 23 October 2019 and swiftly spread to entire Oromia Region after activist and Director of Oromia Media Network, Jawar Mohammed reported on his Facebook page around midnight, on Tuesday. In his post, Jawar has said that his house was surrounded by police officers and that they tried to withdraw his security guards from their posts. His VIP security detail was assigned to him by the government once he arrived from the US. According to official reports, 86 people were killed, 76 were killed by Communal violence, while 10 were security forces of Ethiopia.
New York City's waste management system is a refuse removal system primarily run by the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). The department maintains the waste collection infrastructure and hires public and private contractors who remove the city's waste. For the city's population of more than eight million, The DSNY collects approximately eleven thousand tons a day of garbage, including compostable material and recycling.
A garbage landslide is a man-made event that occurs when poorly managed garbage mounds at landfills collapse with similar energy to natural landslides. These kinds of slides can be catastrophic as they sometimes occur near communities of people, often being triggered by weather or human interaction. This form of landslide has attracted the attention of anthropologists, news media, and politicians as a result of incidents that have severely damaged communities and killed hundreds of people since the 1990s.
Hachalu Hundessa was an Ethiopian singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Hachalu played a significant role in the 2014–2016 Oromo protests that led to Abiy Ahmed taking charge of the Oromo Democratic Party and Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, and subsequently becoming prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018.
On 2 July 2020, a major landslide at the Wai Khar jade mining site in the Hpakant area of Kachin State, Myanmar, killed between 175 and 200 miners in the country's deadliest-ever mining accident. At 06:30 local time (MMT) heavy rains triggered the collapse of a heap of mining waste, which came tumbling down into a lake. This generated a 6.1-meter (20 ft) wave of mud and water that buried those working at the Wai Khar mine. The miners killed or injured by the landslide were independent "jade pickers", who scavenge tailings from larger operators and who live in ramshackle quarters at the base of large mounds of rubble.
The Hachalu Hundessa riots were a series of civil unrest that occurred in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, more specifically in the hot spot of Addis Ababa, Shashamene and Ambo following the killing of the Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020. The riots lead to the deaths of at least 239 people according to initial police reports. Peaceful protests against Hachalu's killing have been held by Oromos abroad as well. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found in its 1 January 2021 full report that part of the killings were a crime against humanity, with deliberate, widespread systematic killing of civilians by organised groups. The EHRC counted 123 deaths, 76 of which it attributed to security forces.
The Benishangul-Gumuz conflict was an armed conflict mostly in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region in Ethiopia that started in 2019, until peace agreement signed between the rebel groups and the government of Ethiopia in October 2022.
On December 22, 2021, a landslide occurred at a jade mine in the township of Hpakant in Kachin State, Myanmar. The landslide killed at least three people, and left at least 70 to 100 missing.
On 21–22 July 2024, two landslides buried two villages in the South Ethiopia Regional State, Ethiopia, killing 257 people and injuring 12. The second landslide buried those who had arrived to help in the wake of the first. These are the deadliest landslides in Ethiopian history.