Two deadly landslides killed at least 229 people in Ethiopia in late July. They mark the latest additions in what is becoming an increasingly worrisome pattern of purportedly climate-fueled weather events in the region.
What happened?
The New York Times reported on the disasters, which happened in Ethiopia's central Geze district. The first landslide struck in the morning following days of significant rainfall, swallowing houses whole and killing "entire families," according to local officials.
As emergency responders and people from neighboring villages rushed to help, they were unexpectedly hit by a second mudslide, which killed many more people.
The Times quoted local emergency response official Habtamu Fetena, who said, "They had no clue that the land they were standing on was about to swallow them."
Fetena was expecting the death toll to rise as volunteers and responders worked to excavate more victims from the mud.
Why is this so concerning?
The Geze area, which is primarily rural, had been experiencing many days of heavy rain. But this is far from a one-time event. Instead, the Times reported, this is "a region that is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including long droughts followed by strong storms and more frequent and intense rainfalls."
The United Nations also reported on the climate-fueled weather threats facing southern and eastern Africa. It stated a third of the countries considered most susceptible to the threats and risks of climate change are located there.
Ethiopia is particularly prone because it's subject to the effects of both La Nina and El Nino, extreme weather patterns that many experts believe are amplified by climate change, according to the Yale School of the Environment.
More than 3 million people in Ethiopia have been displaced by floods and/or droughts in the last five years, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
In addition to fatalities, the mudslides were also extremely devastating for the area's wheat and barley crops, causing concern about economic losses.
What's being done to protect against future landslides?
While some villages in the region had been moved following prior landslides, others are now occurring in places where they had been rare, the Times reported.
Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the country's Federal Disaster Prevention Task Force to the area to assist.
However, the best way to deal with landslides is to prevent them from happening, not to simply manage their devastating aftermath. To this end, constant weather monitoring and alerts can help evacuate residents to safety.
And perhaps most importantly, the underlying and amplifying influence of global heating must be reduced by corporations and governments taking steps to limit planet-warming pollution.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
