Seven people including children killed in Kyrgyz mud slides

A view of a mud slide in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown on August 15, 2017. (File photo by Saidu BAH / AFP)

Five children and two adults have died in mudslides in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous Central Asian country on the front line of climate change, the government said Saturday.

“Seven people died in the Nookat district” of southern Kyrgyzstan,” said the Ministry of Emergency Situations, adding that five of the dead were minors born between 2008 and 2016.

At least 1,300 people on holiday in the area have been evacuated since Friday evening, it added.

Saturday’s tragedy comes just days after the death of a five-year-old child in a similar disaster.

Central Asia, a region particularly sensitive to climate change, regularly suffers floods, earthquakes, landslides, avalanches and fires.

But rising temperatures are leading to more frequent and intense droughts, natural disasters and unpredictable seasonal weather condition in Kyrgyzstan, according to the United Nations.

According to local media, the ministry announced in late June an 86 percent increase in mudslides between March and July 2024 compared with the same period last year.

“There is not a single region in the country that has not had to deal with mudslides,” it said.