1.6 million families face landslide risk

By Moses Nampala

A rumbling noise sent chills down the spine of Yorokamu Cheplagat, 78. He had never heard about a landslide in his district, Kapchorwa.

Then came an explosion, with a heavy tremor, prompting him to jump out of bed and bolt out of the house. “My son, I saw a huge rock about the size of a car rolling and flattening the main house and kitchen,”Cheplagat recounts.

Then all hell broke loose. A gigantic mound of soil from the top of the hill drifted down, covering the rubble of the flattened main house and kitchen.

Simon Kakwilat, 35, had an even more scary experience. As he and his wife fled the house, they forgot to wake up their eight-year-old son, Leonard Chebet.

The herd of 10 goats, tethered in the kitchen were crushed to death, but miraculously little Chebet survived unscathed and was pulled out of the rubble.

The above episodes are  just part of what transpired two weeks ago, on the morning of August 1, in Kaplabete village, Kaserem sub-county, in Kapchorwa district. Four other villages that constitute Weere parish, in Kaserem sub-county were affected.

Red cross regional manager Stephen Wamakota, said 33 households with a population of 367 people were affected. “The August 1, 2013 incident is merely a pointer, a time bomb, that may explode any time and wipe out all these people,” Wamakota  warns.

A team of geologists that for the last one year has been undertaking a compressive study of the calamity, is not surprised by the growing threat of landslides.

According to scientists from Busitema University and Katholieku University Leveun of Beligum, who have been undertaking a comprehensive study on landslides around Mt Elgon range, at least 1,631,957 families occupying an area of 332,280 hectares are at a risk of being swept away or buried by landslides.

“The soil particles in the Elgon mountain ranges are porous. Like a piece of sponge, they can easily absorb water (rain) but cannot hold it,” explains Dr. Moses  Isabirye, Busitema University dean of faculty of natural resources and science.

Isabirye adds that the landslide-prone areas have a thin layer of soil, which can easily slide off. This is worsened by population pressure.

“The increased human activity has seen a sizeable proportion of the ecosystem (vegetation) considerably cleared as people seek to acquire more land for farming,” says Alice Nakiyemba, a socio-economist at Busitema University.

The scientists point out that the indigenous cordia tree species is becoming depleted yet it has traditionally protected the mountain ranges against landslides. The tree has a unique root system that holds the soil. Where a landslide occurs despite presence of cordia, the tree remains standing.

The scientists recommend that Cordia should be re-planted throughout the landslide-prone areas. They are also mapping out the areas and coding them according to the degree of landslide risk.

They recommend that the Government relocates people from the high-risk areas to low-risk areas and also identify alternative economic activities to divert people away from farming, which would reduce the risk of landslides.

“After soil sampling exercise, we shall make appropriate conservation methods,” says Filip Vanderhoydonks, a bio-engineer at Katholieku University Leveun.