Landslide at Ethiopia monastery kills 14 during religious ritual

Heavy rainfall triggered a landslide at Tsadqane Debre Mitmaq St. Mary Monastery in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, killing at least 14 people as hundreds of worshippers gathered for a holy water cleansing ritual. The slope gave way during a religious gathering at the mountain monastery, turning a site of prayer into a mass-casualty scene.

The ritual draws people seeking spiritual healing for chronic illnesses, which helped fill the monastery with families, elders and children from surrounding communities. BBC reporting said 11 of the 14 people found in the debris were buried at the monastery, a sign of how quickly the collapse became both a disaster scene and a place of mourning.

The timing made the toll worse. Ethiopia’s longer rainy season runs from June to September, and saturated hillsides in the highlands can fail with little warning. In one AP account, the slide killed 14 people and injured seven others, while another report put the injury count at five. Search and rescue in such terrain is difficult when rain continues, roads are blocked and crews have to work around unstable earth and fallen debris.

The disaster also exposed the strain on Amhara’s emergency response capacity. The region has faced conflict, economic hardship and instability in recent years, conditions that can slow the movement of ambulances, rescue teams and supplies into remote mountain communities. The monastery setting added another layer of difficulty, with a dense crowd and emotionally overwhelmed witnesses complicating the effort to account for everyone present when the hillside failed.

Ethiopia has faced repeated deadly slope failures. Reuters reported in July 2024 that deaths from separate landslides in the country had climbed to 229, underscoring that this was not an isolated event but part of a recurring hazard in the highlands. Monasteries in Amhara have also been exposed to other violence: the World Council of Churches said a separate drone strike hit Abbay Giyorgis St Arsema Unity Monastery on July 22. Together, the events show how weather, geography and insecurity can converge in northern Ethiopia and stretch local response systems beyond their limits.