Deadly landslide hits Ethiopia mountain monastery during prayer service

Funerals have been held for some of the 14 people killed in a landslide that hit a mountain monastery hosting an overnight prayer session in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region. Rescue efforts for others feared trapped in the debris after a hillside above the Orthodox Church monastery collapsed in the early hours of Monday morning have now been halted. The monastery includes a prayer chamber carved into the mountainside, where the worshippers had gathered for the special prayer service.

“The land above the cave… slid after the heavy rain that lasted throughout the night,” Dagnachew Azbite, a senior local official, told the BBC. Seven people had been found injured, five of them seriously, he said. “Many of those who died had gathered to receive the holy water,” Megabe Hadis Neka Tibeb Ababu, the diocese’s general manager, told the Associated Press news agency.

Eleven of those who died have been buried at the monastery, while the bodies of the others have been returned to their hometowns for burial, according to Megabe. Identifying some of the victims remained a challenge, he said. Emergency teams, security personnel, healthcare workers and nearby residents had been among those carrying out search and rescue operations at the site, the local authorities said.