乌干达发生泥石流灾害 100多人遇难

More than 100 people have been killed in a landslide in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda, a minister has told the BBC.

乌干达国土东部山区发生泥石流 ，100多人遇难。

Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru has gone to the remote area to assess（评价） what help is needed.

Rescuers are digging through the mud with handheld（手持型） tools, looking for survivors and bodies.

Up to 60 children are missing. They took shelter（躲避） in a health centre which reports say was destroyed overnight.

Mr Ecweru said he had counted 58 bodies himself but local officials had told him at least 106 people have died.

He said the government had provided 100 coffins（棺材） "to give the dead citizens a very decent（得体的，相当好的） burial".

More than 300 people are reported to be missing after their homes were buried in the area on Monday night after recent heavy rains.

One survivor said he was at a church service when the landslide hit.

"All of a sudden the church collapsed. Mud covered the whole place. Five people seated next to me died. I only survived because my head was above the mud," James Kasawi told the Associated Press from a hospital in Bududa.

Ongoing rains have also caused widespread flooding while other landslides have damaged roads, making it almost impossible to get the kind of earth-moving equipment that rescuers need into the site of the disaster, the BBC's East Africa correspondent Peter Greste says.

The Red Cross has asked the government to send Ugandan army engineers to help clear the debris（碎片，残骸） , but with at least a month more of heavy rains forecast the authorities are expecting things to get worse before they get better, our correspondent adds.

The region, about 275km (170 miles) north-east of the capital Kampala, often suffers from landslides but this is an unusually high death toll.