Conakry Dump Landslide Kills 30 After Overnight Rains

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 · The Guardian · Aug 23

30 people were confirmed dead after a huge waste dump collapsed around 2 a.m. in Conakry's Gbessia commune, engulfing nearby tents, shacks and, witnesses said, an apartment building.
Heavy overnight rain triggered the slide, leaving six people seriously injured and 16 lightly hurt as rescue crews used excavators and other tools to clear the debris.
The collapse came less than a week after Guinea's government said it would close the unsafe landfill and move the waste outside Conakry because rainy-season landslides and floods pose recurring risks.
Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah visited the site on Sunday to oversee the response in a country where poor infrastructure and widespread poverty leave many residents exposed to such disasters.