Conakry, Dar-es-Salam landfill collapses: at least thirty dead after rains

The collapse occurred around two in the morning, local time, between Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 August, in the Dar-es-Salam neighbourhood, Gbessia commune, on the outskirts of Conakry. Part of the waste mound at the landfill slid onto the houses built at the foot of the site, following heavy rains that fell during the night. Several houses collapsed.

Two tallies, two sources

The available figures do not coincide, and should be read for what they are: findings from different parties at different times.

Source	Toll
Statement from the Guinean government	30 dead, 6 seriously injured, 16 slightly injured
Guinean civil protection (subsequent provisional toll)	at least 31 dead, people still missing

The government statement thus sets the total number of injured at 22, broken down by severity. The subsequent civil protection toll raises the death count by one and, above all, indicates that searches have not concluded and that people remain missing. This is why the count should be considered provisional: in landslides involving heterogeneous material, the recovery of bodies proceeds over hours or days, and every published figure is the one confirmed at that moment.

The Guinean Press Agency (AGP), an official body, reported that several bodies were pulled out during Sunday morning. This indication too, carried by the Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, is an institutional communication rather than an independent on-the-ground verification.

What the dynamics show

The immediate causal element is meteorological: intense rainfall saturated the accumulated material, which gave way along the front of the deposit. The structural element concerns settlement patterns: the houses affected stood at the foot of the site. The combination of unstabilised landfills and precarious housing built right up against them is recurrent in urban peripheries, and turns a seasonal rain event into a fatal collapse.

The sources consulted do not report the volume of material that slid, the extent of the area affected, the number of houses destroyed, or the number of people evacuated. There are no indications of any risk warnings prior to the collapse, nor of the site’s management status.

The chain of sources

It is worth spelling this out, because the story travelled through different channels that all trace back to a few origins. The toll of 30 dead and 22 injured comes from the Guinean government’s statement, picked up by the AFP agency and carried by the Belgian press; France 24 reported it in its African edition; the Senegalese agency picked up the Guinean AGP; the figure of at least 31 victims is attributed to civil protection. These are four distinct paths, but the figures all remain of Guinean institutional origin: no independent field survey is currently available.

The next verifiable step is the closure of the search operations and a consolidated toll: until then, the number of missing persons remains the figure that could move the total. Should it rise, we will report it, indicating the source and date of each figure.

Sources: La Libre Belgique; France 24; Agence de Presse Sénégalaise; Les 4 Vérités.