The mudslide which left over 40 people dead in Eastern Uganda on Monday could have been prevented, says Uganda’s wildlife authority. As long as people encroach on Mount Elgon these disasters are prone to happen.

By Arne Doornebal, Uganda

For the second time in just over a year, dozens of people died on the slopes of Mount Elgon, the 4321 metre high tourist attraction which forms the border between Uganda and Kenya. In March 2010 a landslide on the southern slope buried several villages. More than a hundred dead bodies were retrieved, though some 250 people remain missing and are believed to be buried under more than ten metres of soil. On Monday morning, a stream of mud engulfed 20 houses and its inhabitants on the northern slopes of Mount Elgon - 43 villagers are believed to have died.

“The houses that were buried on Monday were just outside the Mount Elgon national park,” says Lillian Nsubuga of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. “This mudslide happened because of the park has been encroached upon. Trees have been cut down and the soil just started sliding down the slopes.”

Heavy rains also contributed to the erosion process. In Uganda, people are not allowed to settle or grow crops in a national park, but the Mount Elgon park has been encroached on over the years. “It has been a cat and mouse game,” says Nsubuga. “Local politicians tell people they should keep living on their land, and we can’t use force to get them out of the park,” she explains. “And the population is growing rapidly; you see children everywhere. It is a huge mess.”

40 Km long crack
Just after last year’s landslides, the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) and other environmental organisations discovered a crack in the mountain measuring 40 kilometres long and 1.5 metres deep.

“There is a pending disaster here,” UWA’s chief ranger of the park warned in March this year when local journalists were shown the crack. It is estimated that up to 30,000 people are living in a place that could be potentially covered by earth, once the chunk of the mountain breaks off. “But Monday’s mudslides were not connected to this crack,” Nsubuga explains.

Political game
The area around Mount Elgon was declared a national park in 1992. Thousands of people have since then refused to move outside the park boundaries, despite the threat of mudslides. Uganda’s minister of Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru said this week that all people living on slopes should evacuate, without allocating an alternative place for them.

“It is high time to start relocating people to safe areas,” says opposition Member of Parliament Beatrice Anywar. “Then the original tree cover must be restored.” But many people in the Mount Elgon area feel strengthened by Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who earlier this year allowed a group of 400 landless people to live within the park boundaries.