By Kalkidan Yibeltal in Addis Ababa & Christy Cooney in London

From BBC News

Footage showed hundreds of people gathered at the scene. Reuters

Rescue teams have so far retrieved the bodies of 229 people killed in two landslides in southern Ethiopia, a local official has told the BBC.

The landslides occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning, after heavy rains in a remote mountainous area of the Gofa zone.

The local authority said the search for survivors was “continuing vigorously” but that the “death toll could yet increase”.

Footage showed hundreds of people gathered at the scene and others digging in the dirt in search of people trapped underneath. 

In the background, a hillside can be seen partially collapsed and a large patch of red earth has been exposed. 

The chief administrator of Goza zone, Dagmawi Ayele, told the BBC that the dead included both adults and children, while 10 people rescued alive were receiving treatment in hospital.

Heavy rains caused a landslide on Sunday, and as police officers, teachers and residents from nearby villages frantically continued with search-and-rescue operations on Monday, a second landslide occurred, burying them too under the mud, Mr Dagmawi said. 

“We are still digging,” he told the BBC. 

Markos Melese, the Gofa disaster management head, said that 229 bodies had so far been recovered. 

Gofa is part of the state known as Southern Ethiopia, located around 320km (199 miles) south-west of the capital, Addis Ababa.

Southern Ethiopia is among the areas of the country that have been hit by particularly heavy rain and flooding in recent months, according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).

But instances of landslides and floods go back further. In May 2016, at least 50 people were killed in floods and landslides following heavy rain across the south of the country. 

Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.

The world has already warmed by about 1.2C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

For more on this story go to: BBC

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