A devastating landslide that struck Sudan on the final day of August ranks among the deadliest natural disasters in the country's history. Officials estimated that more than 1,000 people may have been killed as an entire village was leveled.
The mountain village of Tarasin was one of the villages hit hardest by the landslide. Tarasin is set in the heart of the Marrah Mountains, a volcanic region with a summit peak soaring above 3,000 meters (9,840 feet). The mountain chain, a designated World Heritage site, experiences cooler temperatures and greater rainfall than adjacent areas, according to UNICEF.
The Sudan Liberation Movement-Army requested the assistance of the U.N. and international aid groups in recovering the bodies, saying the village of Tarasin was "completely leveled to the ground," according to the Associated Press.
The landslide followed several days of torrential rainfall in northeast Africa. The rugged terrain in this remote and difficult-to-access area, combined with additional rainfall and ongoing conflict, has worsened the disaster's impacts, delaying response efforts.
"The village and its people disappeared," said a local farmer, Al-Amin Abdallah Abbas. "It's an unprecedented tragedy."
Other landslides have already made headlines this year. Record rainfall in South Korea this summer triggered deadly landslides in the county of Sancheong in the South Gyeongsang Province. Nearly 20 people were killed by flooding and subsequent landslides in the region.
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Landslides took the lives of at least 229 people in Ethiopia in late July. Emergency responders and volunteers from neighboring villages were helping in recovery efforts from an initial landslide when an unexpected mudslide struck.
Our warming world is supercharging extreme weather events, with more studies finding the risk of landslides rising as the planet's temperature warms. A recent study done by an international team of scientists warns of an overall increase in landslide susceptibility on our overheating planet. Researchers estimate that nearly 13% of the world's land area is at very high landslide risk.
The first quantitative study that focused on the link between precipitation and landslides in the High Mountain Asia region of China, Tibet, and Nepal revealed that more frequent and extreme rainfall events caused by an overheating planet could cause more landslides in the region.
Sudan is a country that is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of a warming world. Scientists with World Weather Attribution found that "women and girls continue to bear disproportionate impacts of heatwaves in South Sudan that have become a constant threat," according to a March study.
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Definitely 💯 "Malnutrition, already affecting 860,000 children under five in South Sudan, is worsened by extreme heat," the authors of the study add. "Extreme heat worsens food insecurity, weakens immune systems, and increases the risk of dehydration and illness, particularly in children in female-headed households."
"Sudan is severely exposed to climate change," according to a joint report from the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "As one of the world's least developed countries, extreme weather, recurrent floods and droughts, and changing precipitation interact with other vulnerabilities — such as ecosystem degradation, unsustainable agricultural practices, natural resource scarcities and resource-based conflicts — limiting societal capacities to cope and adapt."
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