Landslides, Floods Kill at Least 80 in Ethiopia’s Gamo Highlands as Belg Rains Intensify

The rain began as a steady drizzle over the steep green hills of Ethiopia’s Gamo highlands and did not let up for days. By the night of March 10, it had turned the thin mountain soil into a heavy, shifting mass. In villages tucked onto the slopes of Gacho Baba district, residents described a roar, a sudden cracking sound, and then darkness as entire sections of hillside gave way, burying homes beneath tons of mud.

“When I came out, the house below ours was gone,” a farmer from one of the affected kebeles said by phone. “We started digging with our hands. We could hear people shouting, and then it was quiet.”

By the end of that week, landslides and flash floods across Gamo Zone in southern Ethiopia had killed at least 80 people and likely more than 100, and left more than 3,400 people without homes. The federal government declared three days of national mourning beginning March 15, ordering flags flown at half-staff across the country.

A familiar disaster in Ethiopia’s southern highlands

The disaster, concentrated in three rural districts of South Ethiopia Regional State, comes less than two years after another series of rain-triggered landslides in neighboring Gofa Zone killed more than 250 people in July 2024. It has renewed questions about why communities in Ethiopia’s southern highlands remain so vulnerable despite repeated warnings from climate scientists and pledges by officials to improve early warning, land management and emergency response.

Officials in Gamo Zone say the landslides followed what they described as “continuous and unseasonal” rain from the night of March 9 through early March 11. The Belg rainy season, which typically runs from February to May, is an important source of water for the country’s southern and central highlands. This year, regional climate centers had forecast above-normal rainfall for March through May over much of southern Ethiopia and warned of heightened flood and landslide risks.

The worst damage has been reported in Gacho Baba, Kamba and Bonke districts. In these highland areas, homes built of mud and stone hug steep, cultivated slopes. After days of rain, sections of hillside collapsed without warning.

Rising toll, difficult access

On March 12, Gamo Zone disaster response director Mesfin Manuqa said at least 50 people had been killed and 125 others were missing in the three districts. He said the numbers could rise as rescue crews reached remote communities cut off by blocked roads.

“Most of the dead were found buried in the mud,” said Gacho Baba district communications chief Abebe Agena, adding that the number of affected households was still being counted.

The following day, federal officials said the bodies of at least 80 people had been recovered from the debris. By March 16, the regional government was reporting around 125 deaths from the combined impacts of landslides and flash floods in Gamo Zone.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, an independent state body accountable to parliament, said more than 3,461 people had been displaced. Many are sheltering in schools, religious compounds and temporary camps, often with limited access to clean water and health services.

Images from the area distributed by national broadcasters show farmers walking along roads sliced in half by deep gullies, and yellow earthmovers pushing aside mud and boulders to reopen access. In some villages, only corrugated iron roofs are visible above the brown, compacted soil where houses once stood.

National mourning and calls to relocate

On March 13, Tagesse Chafo, speaker of the House of Peoples’ Representatives, announced a period of national mourning “for our citizens who lost their lives due to the natural disaster in Gamo Zone.” The Government Communication Service said the federal government was working with South Ethiopia Regional State authorities to provide search and recovery, food, shelter and medical assistance, but acknowledged that continuing rain was slowing operations.

Tilahun Kebede, president of South Ethiopia Regional State, expressed condolences and urged residents in landslide- and flood-prone areas to move to safer ground as the rainy season continues.

“We call on our people, especially those on steep slopes and near swollen rivers, to relocate to higher and safer places while the rains persist,” he said in a statement broadcast on state television.

Regional disaster officials have warned that the same Belg system drenching Gamo could trigger additional landslides in nearby zones including Wolayta, South Omo, Konso, Gedeo and Gofa, and cause flooding in downstream lowlands.

Forecasts were in place; questions remain

Scientists and humanitarian agencies say none of this came without warning. The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC), which serves the Horn of Africa, had projected wetter-than-normal conditions for March to May across southern and western Ethiopia. The Ethiopian meteorological service issued its seasonal outlook pointing to increased chances of heavy rains and associated hazards.

Those forecasts are intended to feed into a national early warning system, with information passed from federal agencies to regional, zonal and district disaster offices and ultimately to communities through radio, local authorities and religious networks. How well that chain functioned in Gamo is now an open question.

Local officials say they were aware of the risk but had limited time and resources to act.

“We know our area is prone to such disasters,” Mesfin said in his March 12 briefing. “The rain was very intense. It came very quickly, and the terrain here is very steep. People did not have enough time to move.”

Structural vulnerability on steep slopes

The landslides have drawn comparisons to the July 2024 catastrophe in Geze Gofa district, where days of heavy rain triggered a series of slope failures that wiped out entire villages, killed at least 249 to 257 people and displaced more than 6,600. That event, the deadliest recorded natural disaster in Ethiopia’s recent history, prompted calls from the United Nations and aid organizations for hazard mapping, relocation of the most exposed communities, slope stabilization projects and stronger enforcement of land-use rules.

Some soil and water conservation work and tree-planting campaigns followed, as part of a broader national land-restoration program. But in much of South Ethiopia Region, steep hillsides remain crowded with small farms and houses.

“The underlying pressures haven’t changed: high population density, land scarcity, degraded catchments and very limited alternative livelihoods,” a disaster risk specialist with a humanitarian agency said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. “When you add more intense rain events to that, landslides like this are likely to recur.”

The Gamo highlands, like neighboring Gofa and Wolayta zones, are carved by deep valleys and ridges at elevations often above 2,000 meters. Generations of farmers have cut terraces into the slopes to grow enset—a staple sometimes called “false banana”—along with barley, maize, root crops and pulses. Over decades, deforestation and cultivation on marginal land have left many hillsides unstable, researchers say.

A regional pattern of extreme weather

Those conditions are not unique to Ethiopia. The same storm systems that soaked Gamo in early March brought deadly flooding to parts of Kenya, where more than 60 people were reported killed in flash floods in and around Nairobi and other regions. Regional media have put the combined toll from floods and landslides across East Africa at more than 110 deaths over that period.

Relief challenges and health risks

In Gamo, the immediate concern is still rescue and relief. Blocked or washed-out roads have complicated efforts to reach some villages by truck, forcing responders to walk in supplies or use heavy machinery to clear paths. Local volunteers and family members were often first on the scene, digging through mud with hand tools before excavators could arrive.

Health workers are bracing for potential outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera and acute watery diarrhea, as latrines overflow and drinking water sources become contaminated. Stagnant pools left by the rains also raise the risk of malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

In crowded temporary shelters, protection agencies warn of increased risks of gender-based violence, exploitation and family separation, issues documented in previous disasters in southern Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has said it is monitoring the situation of displaced people and stressed that authorities must ensure “equitable access to emergency assistance” and safeguard the rights and dignity of those affected.

A longer recovery—and a looming question

Longer term, the disaster is likely to deepen existing hardship in a region already struggling with high food prices, limited services and the lingering effects of drought and conflict in other parts of the country. Families that lost homes also lost stored grain, seeds, tools and livestock, undermining their ability to plant for the coming season.

“Our land is gone,” said the farmer from Gacho Baba, whose terraced field now ends at a raw, vertical cut where the hillside sheared away. “We don’t know where we will live next year or what we will eat.”

As the Belg rains continue, emergency teams in Gamo are racing against the weather and unstable terrain. The scars of the March landslides will remain visible on the hillsides for years, as will the open question facing officials and residents alike: whether this tragedy will finally spur the investments and difficult choices needed to keep people off the most dangerous slopes, or whether the next season of heavy rains will once again find families in the path of the moving earth.