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Thirty people have died in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, after a mound of rubbish at a landfill collapsed onto neighbouring homes following heavy rains.
The incident occurred around 2 a.m. on Sunday in the Dar-es-Salam neighbourhood of the Bbessia district on the outskirts of the capital, according to the government.
Six other people were seriously injured in the collapse.
The government said significant material and human resources had been deployed to search for people who might still be trapped, rescue survivors and recover the bodies of victims.
“Significant material and human resources have been deployed to search for any people who may still be buried, to rescue the victims and to recover the bodies,” the government said in a statement.
Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah visited the disaster scene as rescue operations continued.
AFP photographers at the scene saw excavators working through the collapsed landfill as crowds gathered to watch the search-and-rescue operation.
The government also said it had taken measures to provide medical care for the injured and assist people affected by the tragedy.
Before the official death toll was announced, the neighbourhood leader, Lancine Sylla, said he feared that many people had died in the collapse.
“We have pulled out 18 bodies that were taken to the morgue,” he told AFP.
Former Prime Minister and opposition figure Cellou Dalein Diallo, who is currently in exile, described the incident as a tragedy.
“This tragedy is all the more worrying because the closure of the dump had been announced for this Sunday, August 23,” he said on Facebook.
Diallo called on the authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collapse and ensure that the findings were made public.
“It is now up to the competent authorities to establish, with full transparency, the circumstances that led to this disaster and to draw all the necessary conclusions,” he said.
The disaster occurred despite concerns about the landfill’s safety. The government had reportedly ordered the eviction of people living around the site in recent days because of fears that the dump could collapse.
Guinea is led by General Mamadi Doumbouya, who came to power in a 2021 coup before being elected president in December 2025.
