Ethiopia Gofa landslide: My family went to help landslide victims and ended up dead

They joined a throng of villagers who similarly had arrived upon hearing the news and instinctively started digging through the dirt and mud, many of them just with their hands, hoping to rescue those buried underneath.

In the following hours many others came. But they had limited success – a few people were pulled out alive, many more remained trapped.

“It was a sad day,” Ms Meselech said.

Seeing that a lot more manpower and effort were required, officials from the locality began mobilising help.

The next day, at an emergency meeting, they told every able-bodied adult, and older children, to get any farming tools – such as shovels, axes and hoes – they could get their hands on and work in unison.

The site was inaccessible to vehicles with more heavy-duty lifting equipment.

Ms Meselech’s husband and her two eldest sons – aged 15 and 12 – immediately joined the search-and-rescue efforts. Meanwhile she returned home from the meeting to breastfeed her toddler and cook for her other children.

Then she went back downhill to offer help. But what awaited her was a different – and more tragic – scene. There had been a second landslide burying most of those involved in the rescue mission.

Unable to control her emotions, she hastened to the land that engulfed her husband and her children. But someone stopped her reminding her it was still dangerous.

“They said I still had kids at home and I had to survive for them.”

In the following hours, news of the double tragedy was heard across the villages and towns close by.

Hundreds came to help.