The death toll from a mound of junk that toppled in Uganda’s capital last week has increased to 35, with 12 of them being young people, authorities said Friday. At least 28 others remain missing from the Uganda Garbage Landslide.

The Uganda Garbage landslide struck late last Friday after a massive chunk of debris slipped off the mound at the Kiteezi dump on Kampala’s northern outskirts. Dozens of homes near the dump were buried as the residents were sleeping. Nine more bodies have been discovered since Wednesday when 26 were declared deceased. Police noted in a statement about the tragedy that it was difficult to identify some of the fresh victims since they were in such poor condition.

The Uganda Garbage landslide occurred following intense rains that had recently hit portions of the East African country, causing extensive flooding and devastation.

Residents near the landfill, Kampala’s only rubbish disposal for decades, have long complained about dangerous material poisoning the environment and endangering people. Similar disasters have occurred elsewhere in Africa as a result of poorly managed municipal trash mountains, including a 2017 occurrence in Ethiopia that killed at least 115 people.

Shadow foreign affairs minister Muwada Nkunyingi, who also represents the area in parliament, stated that more people need to be added than what the police are reporting.

From what the community people are claiming, the dead may exceed even 100. Since the Uganda Garbage landslide, we see people coming up in search of their loved ones and family members. Excavators have been working through the massive waste mounds, often amid torrential downpours.

Erias Lukwago, the mayor of Kampala, condemned the occurrence as a “national disaster”. He has previously warned about the dangers of overflowing rubbish at the dump, constructed in 1996, which receives nearly all garbage collected in Kampala. Heavy rains have recently hit Uganda and other parts of East Africa.

Museveni said in a statement that he had ordered reparations to the victims’ relatives of five million Ugandan shillings ($1,300) for each dead and one million shillings ($270) for each injured person. However, locals of the site have expressed dissatisfaction with the government, claiming that they were aware of the dangers and did little to help.

Abubaker Semuwemba Lwanyaga, a local community leader, said that officials “should own up and accept their mistake. The government ought to have evacuated people from here if they wanted to put a landfill and compensated them, and not waited for a disaster to happen“.

Heavy rains have lately hit several locations in Uganda and other parts of East Africa, including Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous country. Last month, devastating landslides in a remote mountainous area in southern Ethiopia killed over 250 people. More than 350 people were killed by mudslides in Mount Elgon, eastern Uganda, in February 2010.

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