Conakry Landfill Collapse Kills 31 and Injures 22 After Heavy Rain

Q: Despite a deadly 2017 collapse and recent eviction notices, why were families still living next to Guinea's most hazardous waste dump?

Families were still living beside the Dar Es Salam dump because eviction orders and closure plans had not translated into a complete, enforced relocation before the collapse. Authorities said notices had been issued and many people had left, but others remained in homes and shacks at the edge of the landfill when the rains triggered the slide. The reporting points to a familiar urban pattern: people were occupying informal housing next to a hazardous site that had long been known as dangerous, including after a 2017 collapse that killed 10 people. Yet the dump continued operating for years, rubbish kept accumulating, and the settlement around it was not fully cleared. Officials said the site was only due to close on the very day of the disaster, suggesting action came late. The evidence available does not show that residents ignored a clearly completed relocation program. Rather, it suggests a gap between warning and implementation. Residents had been told to leave, but authorities were still promising after the disaster that “remaining families” would be relocated elsewhere, indicating that safer alternative housing had either not been fully arranged, not been enforced, or not yet been taken up by everyone. In short, families remained because Conakry’s most hazardous dump stayed active despite earlier deadly warnings, while eviction and closure measures were incomplete when the heavy rains hit.

3 articles · Updated · BBC.com · Aug 24

At least 31 people were killed and 22 injured—six seriously—when a mound of rubbish collapsed onto homes in Conakry's Dar-es-Salam area around 02:00 local time.
Heavy overnight rain triggered the slide, and witnesses said a second section then gave way in three stages, burying residents and people who had rushed in to help.
Military-backed rescue teams and excavators were still searching the waste for survivors, with officials warning the toll could rise further.
Prime Minister Mamadou Oury Bah visited the site, while Health Minister Khaïté Sall promised free treatment for the injured and support for affected families.
The disaster struck at a landfill the government had recently ordered nearby residents to leave and planned to close; a similar collapse there killed 10 people in 2017.