Last Saturday night the mountains of rubbish in the dump near our child sponsorship program suddenly gave way in an avalanche that buried 49 homes. At last count, 115 people have been confirmed dead, but many are still missing and rescue workers continue to dig through the rubbish. No one knows what caused the landslide at the only garbage dump in a city of 3.6 million, though many suspect that simply too much rubbish was being brought there. Aljazeera’s report of the tragedy is here and an updated Reuters report here.
Two of the children in a nearby Compassion child sponsorship program lost their lives. By God’s grace none of our sponsored children or their immediate families were killed, though some had relatives who died. Our staff is assessing the needs of affected families, and will be doing what they can to help them resettle. We just wired an initial $1000 to them for this purpose; additional contributions can be made by clicking here and marking your donation “for landslide relief.” Please join us in prayer for this tragedy in one of Addis Ababa’s poorest neighborhoods.