Landslide in Uganda

This item appears on page 18 of the December 2018 issue.

In the Bududa region of eastern Uganda, heavy rains caused a landslide on Mount Elgon on Oct. 12 that killed more than 40 people. At press time, about 400 people were still missing in the area after the slide, including 200 students whose school was swept away.

Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano that is the centerpiece of Mount Elgon National Park, which straddles the Uganda/Kenya border north of Lake Victoria. Bududa is a mountainous volcanic region that is prone to landslides. A landslide in 2010 in the same area killed more than 300 people.