Deadly landslide hits Ethiopia mountain monastery during prayer service

Deadly landslide hits Ethiopia mountain monastery during prayer service Funerals have been held for many of the 14 people killed when a landslide struck an upland monastery hosting an overnight prayer service in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region. Rescue efforts for others feared trapped in the debris after the hillside above the Orthodox Church monastery collapsed in the early hours of Monday have been halted. The monastery contains a prayer chamber carved into the mountainside where worshippers had gathered for the special service. “The onshore supra the cave… slid aft the dense rainfall that lasted passim the night,” Dagnachew Azbite, an elder section official, told the BBC. Seven people were rescued with injuries, five of them seriously, he said. The prayer service at Tsadqane Debre Mitmaq St Mary Monastery included a holy water cleansing ritual popular among Orthodox Christians seeking spiritual healing for chronic illnesses. “Many of those who died had gathered to person the beatified water,” Megabe Hadis Neka Tibeb Ababu, the diocese's wide manager, told the Associated Press quality agency. Eleven of the dead 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, health workers and local residents had been involved in search and rescue operations at the site, the regional authorities said. Archbishop Abune Klementos, head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's North Shewa Diocese, traveled to the monastery to lead ceremonial prayers for those killed, offer communion for the injured and provide comfort to grieving families, the authorities added. Landslides are a recurring hazard in Ethiopia during the country's main rainy season, which typically runs from June to August. In March, more than 100 people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains in the southern Gamo Zone area. More than 229 people, including rescuers, were killed by a landslide in the neighbouring Geze Gofa Zone in July 2024, one of the country's deadliest weather‑related disasters in recent years. Over the past two decades, numerous studies have documented an increase in both extreme wet spells and prolonged dry periods across East Africa. Scientists have repeatedly warned that human‑driven climate change is making severe weather events — such as intense, long‑lasting downpours — more frequent and more severe. Additional reporting by Wycliffe Muia.