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Rescue teams have so far retrieved the bodies of 157 people killed in two landslides in southern Ethiopia, a local official has told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The landslides occurred on Sunday evening and Monday morning, after heavy rains in a remote mountainous area of the Gofa zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The local authority said the search for survivors was “continuing vigorously” but that the “death toll could yet increase”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Footage showed hundreds of people gathered at the scene and others digging in the dirt in search of people trapped underneath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the background, a hillside can be seen partially collapsed and a large patch of red earth has been exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief administrator of Goza zone, Dagmawi Ayele, told the BBC that the dead included both adults and children, while 10 people rescued alive were receiving treatment in hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Heavy rains caused a landslide on Sunday, and as police officers, teachers and residents from nearby villages frantically continued with search-and-rescue operations on Monday, a second landslide occurred, burying them too under the mud, Mr Dagmawi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are still digging,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gofa is part of the state known as Southern Ethiopia, located around 320km (199 miles) south-west of the capital, Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Southern Ethiopia is among the areas of the country that have been hit by particularly heavy rain and flooding in recent months, according to the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).<\/p>\n\n\n\n