Guinea rubbish landfill collapse kills 30

**Alex Ridsom** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ridsom and in the early hours of Monday 24 August, these are our main stories. A landslide caused by a mountain of rubbish collapsing at a waste site in Guinea kills at least 30 people. In Ukraine, the sacked defence minister tells the BBC he stands by his call for elections despite the war. 90,000 people are ordered to flee their homes in the US state of Nevada due to a fast moving wildfire.
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At least 30 people have been killed and 6 injured in the West African state of Guinea after a large pile of rubbish collapsed at one of the biggest landfill sites in the capital, Conakry. The authorities said it happened early on Sunday morning following heavy rain, days after officials were planning to close the site because of the danger. These two men were among the survivors.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:24)
At around two or three in the morning, we heard something sliding, a scream outside. Everyone was shouting. I then called to my wife. We can't stay in the house. People are screaming outside. Let's go. By the time we got outside, not even two or three minutes had passed.

**Alex Ridsom** (1:42)
I was sleeping with my little brother, my two brothers. I was sleeping.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:46)
There were strange noises behind me.

**Alex Ridsom** (1:48)
Then I saw it collapse.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:49)
So there were two of us, my little brother. The other one died in it and we got the other one out.

**Alex Ridsom** (1:55)
I went to call people to come and help me and get my mother out. Oliver Conway heard more about the accident from the BBC's Makkawatchi Okofor who's in the region.

**Makkawatchi Okofor** (2:04)
Authorities in Guinea have said following some heavy rainfalls, currently now is rainy season in the country, a huge part of a landfill in Daisalam area collapsed into people's homes. Now six people were injured, also about over 15 more people sustained minor injuries. Several homes around that area got destroyed.
Such a risky operations are still going on because they suspect some bodies are perhaps trapped under the rubble of what has happened. So that sort of means that this death toll of 30, they're saying that there's potential that it might rise. Now, a bit of background, Guinea has had huge waste management problem for the longest time. In the past, there's been incidents similar to this in 2019 and 2017, still around the same area where this was reported. And the country has been making efforts to manage waste a lot better. In fact, they tried to close this particular dump site that has collapsed and explore new places, but that seems not to have just worked out, unfortunately. And now, there's been 30 deaths.

**Tim Vickery** (3:17)
And do we know what was being dumped in this landfill site? Was it household waste or something from industry?

**Makkawatchi Okofor** (3:22)
It's more of household waste, plastics, clothes, regular dump sites, not on an industrial level. And that's also now become quite a huge issue because people live around here. I mean, the country's population is growing, urbanization is happening, people don't have so much space in the newer urban areas. And these are low-income families forced to live close to this dump site that have this rubbish from homes, food decay, food materials, clothes and plastic and all that. And that's what just collapsed into some people's homes following the rains and led to this unfortunate and tragic incident.

**Tim Vickery** (4:05)
And what can be done to prevent this kind of thing happening again?

**Makkawatchi Okofor** (4:08)
I mean, authorities say they've been first, sending warning signs to people living there up on, like, as way back as six months ago, that have been raising awareness, but people seem not to have heeded to that. Maybe stronger enforcement perhaps would have helped in getting people out of there early enough, strong early warning signs, and also even considering recycling, because that has also been one of the ideas the country have been looking at exploring, recycling waste. But that seems not just to have happened as smoothly as they have planned through the years. And, you know, it has now led to this. Now they are closing the site where this happened. So there's potential that new sites could be opened and better ways of managing the waste could be explored.