My family went to help landslide victims and died

Meselesh Gosaye, a mother of six, was taking care of her children at her mountaintop home in the Gofa district in southern Ethiopia when she heard about the landslide and learned that many of her children were trapped in the mud.

“People were screaming and then we rushed down the mountain,” she said, fighting back tears as she recalled what happened Sunday.

The Kencho Satcha Gozdi district where Ms. Meselechi lives has many small villages scattered across hilly terrain that are threatened by floods and landslides.

This series of settlements is characterized by mud-walled, tin-roofed houses, some of which are located on or near the top of lush hillsides. Other villages, including one buried by landslides, are clustered at the foot of the mountains.

Sunday’s disaster was preceded by heavy rains, which made the area’s narrow and slippery sidewalks dangerous.

But Ms. Meselek, her husband and some of their children did not hesitate and rushed to the scene of the accident.

“When we got there we saw the house had been swallowed up by mud,” she told the BBC.

Together with villagers who had also arrived after hearing the news, they instinctively began to dig through the dirt and mud, many using only their hands, hoping to rescue those buried underneath.

In the following hours, many more people came to the rescue, but their success was limited – some people were rescued alive, but many others remained trapped.

“It’s a sad day,” Ms. Meselechi said.

Local officials, seeing the need for more manpower and energy, began mobilizing aid.

The next day, at an emergency meeting, they told every able-bodied adult and older child to get whatever farm tools they could get their hands on, such as shovels, axes and hoes, and work together.

The site is not accessible to vehicles carrying heavy lifting equipment.

Ms. Meselechi’s husband and two older sons, ages 15 and 12, immediately joined the search. Meanwhile, she returned home from the conference to breastfeed her toddler and cook for her other children.

Then she went down the mountain to help. But what awaited her was a different scene, and even more tragic. A second landslide buried most of the people involved in the rescue.

Unable to control her emotions, she hurried to the land where her husband and children were drowned, but someone stopped her and reminded her that it was still dangerous here.

“They said I had children at home and I had to live for them.”

Over the next few hours, news of this double tragedy spread to nearby villages and towns.

Hundreds of people came to help.

Families scrambled to find missing relatives. Some — including a local leader who had mobilized residents after the first landslide — were soon confirmed dead.

At one point, Ms. Meselechi “saw an excavator pulling out a body of a man. I thought it was my husband. I started helping,” she said.

“I thought he was still alive. But he was dead. He was still holding on to the axe he had brought with him when he went to help people buried in the first landslide.”

“His face was unrecognizable. To confirm his identity, I checked his breast pocket because that’s where I knew his ID was. It was him. I screamed.”

While her husband’s body was moved to a safe place along with other bodies that had been recovered, Ms. Meselechi was unable to go along because her two sons were still missing.

“I am very conflicted and don’t know whether to go or stay.”

The body of her 12-year-old son was later found. When she spoke to the BBC on Thursday, her 15-year-old son had not been found.

“How much pain I went through giving birth to my child, raising my child, educating my child. It’s too hard for me,” she said in grief.

But Ms. Meselek is not the only one grieving. Death has knocked on the doors of many families here.

Some 257 people have been confirmed dead in the two landslides, and the United Nations estimates the death toll could reach 500 as more mud is dug out in the coming days.

Serawit Johannes, whose father and half-brother are still missing, told the BBC that because most people’s relatives are missing or confirmed dead, “not even the relatives are helping us dig” because they themselves “have to look for two or three relatives.”

According to the United Nations, 15,000 people will have to be relocated from these mountains to avoid future disasters. This will require a lot of energy and money.

But Ms. Meselek will not be able to let go until she finds her son.

It takes a long time for communities to recover.