At least 31 people are dead after a massive garbage dump collapsed on homes in Sri Lanka’s capital city last week.
The 300-foot rotting pile of trash, which weighed about 23 million tons, destroyed 145 homes last Friday in northeastern Colombo.
Rescuers are still searching for five people reported missing but authorities aren’t hopeful there’ll be any survivors four days after the tragic accident.
The 31st body was dug out of the pile Tuesday afternoon.
Now the Colombo Municipal Council is struggling to find new locations to dump the roughly 800 tons of garbage that’s produced every day in the city.
“We are finding new locations. By noon Wednesday I am hopeful of restoring normality in clearing the garbage,” Municipal Commissioner V. K. A. Anura said. “We will not dump it all in one location but at several sites.”
Anura said the deaths could’ve been avoided if residents had taken heed to his warnings two weeks ago to move out with their rent paid by the council for alternate housing.
But activists complained the compensation and relocation wasn’t an answer to a problem that politicians have done nothing to fix for years.
Authorities on Tuesday declared the area unsafe and ordered remaining residents to move out.
The trash heap collapsed after a night of heavy rain and an outbreak of fire as Sri Lankans celebrated its traditional new year.
With Post wires