Dozens dead in landslides in Ethiopia

According to local authorities, at least 50 people have died in landslides in southern Ethiopia.

Two incidents are said to have occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning following heavy rains in a remote mountainous region of the Gofa zone.

The local authority said the search for survivors was “continuing at full speed” but that the “death toll could still rise.”

The footage showed hundreds of people gathering at the scene of the accident and others digging in the dirt to search for people trapped underneath.

In the background you can see a partially collapsed hill, exposing a large patch of red earth.

Meskir Mitku, the general administrator of Gofa zone, said the victims included women, children and police officers.

“It rained heavily last night and several people died in a landslide,” said Kassahun Abayneh, government spokesman for Gofa district in the southern Ethiopian regional state.

“On Monday morning, locals, including police officers, gathered at the accident site to rescue the victims of the first landslide. Then, at around 10:00 a.m. (07:00 GMT) today, the second landslide occurred and those gathered there died,” he said in a statement quoted by AFP news agency.

Gofa is part of the Southern Ethiopia regional state and is located about 320 kilometers southwest of the capital Addis Ababa.

Southern Ethiopia is one of the areas of the country that has been hit by particularly heavy rains and floods in recent months, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

But cases of landslides and floods have been occurring for some time. In May 2016, at least 50 people died in floods and landslides in the south of the country following heavy rainfall.

Floods can have many causes, but warming of the atmosphere due to climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.

Since the beginning of the industrial age, the earth has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments around the world drastically reduce their emissions.