Landfill Collapse Kills at Least 30 in Guinea's Capital
Heavy rains triggered a landslide at a Conakry dump hours before it was set to close, burying shacks in the neighborhood below.
A mountain of garbage collapsed at Guinea's largest landfill early Sunday, killing at least 30 people and injuring six others, according to a government statement and the country's civil protection service.
Heavy rain began falling around 3 a.m. over the Dar es Salam dump in Conakry, the capital, triggering a landslide that buried shacks in the neighborhood below, Al Jazeera reported. Lancine Sylla, the head of the Dar es Salam suburb, told Agence France-Presse he feared the death toll would climb. "We have pulled out 18 bodies that were taken to the morgue," he said.
Djenabou Toure, Guinea's minister for territorial administration, visited the site and said she was waiting for search-and-rescue teams to finish before releasing an official count, according to the South China Morning Post. Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah also traveled to the scene, where excavators dug through the wreckage as crowds looked on.
A closure that came too late
The landfill had been scheduled to close that same Sunday, according to Lieutenant Colonel Balde Mamadou Bailo, a sanitation officer with Guinea's Military Engineering Battalion. In recent days the government had ordered people out of the area and imposed safety measures because officials feared the site could collapse, Al Jazeera reported.
Former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, an opposition figure now living in exile, called the collapse "a tragedy that plunges us into dismay" in a Facebook post written before the death toll was announced. "This tragedy is all the more worrying because the closure of the dump had been announced for this Sunday, August 23," he wrote, adding that authorities should determine "with full transparency" what caused the disaster.
Government response
The government said in its statement that it had deployed "significant material and human resources" to search for anyone still buried, rescue survivors and recover bodies. It also said it had arranged medical care for the injured and assistance for affected families.
Guinea is led by President Mamadi Doumbouya, who seized power in a 2021 coup and was elected president in December 2025.
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