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Local
authorities in Kasese district are struggling with appeals to cause the evacuation
of close to 500 families that risk to be affected by a loaming landslide after
a huge crack was discovered in Buwatha Village in Kilembe sub-county.
The crack
was first reported last week by the Kilembe sub-count councilor to the
sub-county Mr. Emmanuel Kaghuma after residents discovered it following the
start of the rainy season.
The crack
is a top of the Kilembe Mines field that has been redundant for decades which
had forced people establish homes in the area.
The
Kasese Deputy Resident Commissioner Mr. Aminadabu Muhindo on Friday led a team
of district officials to the area but had no option after assessing the danger
other than advising residents to vacate the area for the safety of their lives.
The Deputy
RDC expressed great fear that should rains fall persistently in the area for a
week or two, lives could be lost.
The disaster
threat comes at a time when the government of Uganda is negotiating with Gingco
a Chinese company that wants to take over the copper mining activities in the
Kilembe.
According
to Buwatha village LC1 chairperson, Mr. Yowasi Muhindo, who has served the area
for the last twenty six years, there are four hundred eighty people in the
village.
Mr. Muhindo,
however, said about 40 of the residents had fled the area for safety elsewhere.
Institutions
that could be affected include Buwatha Primary School which has about 300
pupils, a Catholic and an Anglican Church.
At the
source of landslide above the village, the ground had cracked and partly sank
in while some parts are water-logged rendering the soils very weak and heavy.
Neighboring
Mahango sub-county has experienced disaster in the past one year with 8
children buried by the ground falls on their houses in October last year and
April this year.
The RDC
said he is to inform the ministry of Disaster Preparedness to come up with
mechanisms of helping out the people likely to be affected by the upcoming
disaster.
Huge
stones could also be seen precariously hanging some distances above a number of
homesteads.
The area
District Councilor, Emmanuel Kaghuma and the residents attribute the crack and
the landslide on past Kilembe Mines activities in the area.
They
allege that the ground had been weakened by the tunnels, which they said were
now clogged with earth due to the many years of Mines non-functionality.
