At least 30 people were killed and 22 others injured when a vast mound of rubbish collapsed in the early hours of Sunday, 23 August 2026, at the Dar es Salam landfill in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Six of the injured were in a critical condition, according to the Guinean government.
Heavy rains beginning at approximately 2 a.m. local time swept over the accumulated waste at Dar es Salam, triggering a landslide that buried nearby shacks and homes. The site, an open-air dump, is the largest landfill in Conakry and sits in the city's Gbessia commune.
Rescue teams deployed excavators to search through the debris for survivors, with military forces also mobilised, the BBC reported. The search was still ongoing at the time of reporting, and the final death toll remained uncertain.
Neighbourhood leader Lancine Sylla told AFP that 18 bodies had already been taken to the morgue before the government announced its confirmed figure of 30. One woman told local media she had lost all five of her children in the collapse, raising fears the toll could rise further.
What makes the disaster harder to absorb is the timeline. Lt. Col. Baldé Mamadou Bailo, the sanitation officer for the Military Engineering Battalion, confirmed that the landfill had been officially designated for closure on Sunday 23 August — the same day the collapse occurred, according to Al Jazeera. Three days earlier, on 20 August, Guinea's Minister of Territorial Administration, Djenabou Touré, had publicly announced the closure, citing the danger posed by the rainy season and pledging to relocate waste outside Conakry, The Hindu reported.
Eviction notices had been issued to residents living in informal housing near the dump. Many had left. Many had not. Why the closure and full evacuation were incomplete before the rains arrived remains unclear.
The disaster carries a grim precedent. The BBC reported that the Dar es Salam landfill suffered a similar landslide in 2017, which killed at least 10 people. The site's hazards during Guinea's wet season were, in other words, already a matter of official record.
Landfill collapses triggered by heavy seasonal rains have caused deaths across parts of Africa in recent years, with comparable incidents recorded in Uganda and Ethiopia. In each case, settlements close to the dumps have borne the cost of decisions deferred too long.
Minister Touré visited the scene following the collapse and pledged that remaining families would be relocated. How quickly that will happen, and where Conakry's waste will be managed in the longer term, has yet to be determined.
Comments (0)