Floods and mudslides have displaced more than 300 people in Kisinga Sub-County in Kasese district. The disaster was caused by heavy rains that lasted for hours on Monday.
Benjamin Bwambale, the LC3 chairperson for Kisinga Sub-County, says the areas most affected are Bughema, Mughina and Kamahanga, which are in Nyabirongo Parish. He says it is the second time the parish has been flooded in the past two months.
No deaths or injuries have been recorded in the incident. However numerous fields of food crops and several hundred chicken and goats were killed by the falling mud.
Bwambale says he has appealed to the Kasese district authorities to urgently come to the aid of the homeless. He says that when the last flooding occurred in April, only the Uganda Red Cross Society provided assistance by sending blankets, jerry cans, soap, tarpaulins and cooking pans to the displaced.
Neither government nor the district authorities sent aid supplies.
Mike Mukirane, coordinator of the Kasese branch of the Uganda Red Cross Society, says the displaced families are particularly vulnerable to diarrheal diseases like cholera and dysentery. He says pit latrines were flooded and wells and streams have been contaminated by human waste from the floods.
Kasese district is a flood and landslide prone district due to the excessive tilling of the slopes of Mount Elgon, overgrazing, poor farming methods and a growing population.
In 2001a major landslide hit the district, killing one person and destroying 50 homes. Two bridges were washed away and business and communication in four sub-counties was brought to a halt.
