The 2008 Duweika Rockslide happened on September 6, 2008 at a crowded self-built settlement in the

Manshiyat Naser Manshiyat Naser ( arz, منشية ناصر ; , "the Christian suburb", ) is a ward (''kism'') of Cairo, Egypt. It covers 5.54 square kilometers, was home to 262,050 people in the 2006 census, up from 168,425 in 1996 census, and borders Nasr Ci ...

district of

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, resulting in the first major urban disaster to hit the city in the 21st Century, where over 100 were killed, and hundreds of families were made

homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

The event

Just before 9 am, on Saturday September 6^th 2008 (

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6^th, 1429), a series of

rockslides A rockslide is a type of landslide caused by rock failure in which part of the bedding plane of failure passes through compacted rock and material collapses ''en masse'' and not in individual blocks. Note that a rockslide is similar to an avalanc ...

was put in motion, where eight gigantic boulders each the size of a small house and weighing as much as 70 tons,Following the rockfall, Egyptian slum dwellers have little more than hope
Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2009. broke free form the side of a cliff of the Duweika Plateau (an extension of the

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

Muqattam formation), in the district of Manshiyat Nasser in Cairo, crashing down on the homes of the settlement of

Ezbet Bekhit Ezbet Bekhit (Bekheit hamlet) is a self-built community located in the Manshiyat Naser district in Cairo, Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country ...

below. The first of the rockslides was also the most disastrous, destroying at least 166 homes, killing 119 people, and injuring 55 others according to official statistics. Local eyewitness reports from residents and local councilmen indicate the toll to be much higher. In the immediate aftermath 266 families lost their homes and had to camp in shelters at local and farther off sports facilities. A series of more limited rockslides occurred in the ensuing three weeks.

Aftermath

After a large part of the neighbourhood had been flattened by the rockslide, approximately 1500 families still living there and on the plateau above were evicted and any remaining buildings were flattened by the government.Following the rockfall, Egyptian slum dwellers have little more than hope
Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2009. As a result, hundreds of families were left homeless and many still live in squalor near the site of the disaster, despite government promises to find them homes.Cairo's poorest risk being buried alive in their homes
Amnesty International The cause of the landslide has not been definitively determined, but theories included leaked sewage from development projects that eroded rocks. An internal investigation determined that the slide was caused by "fate" and no one would be blamed for it. According to Amnesty International, authorities failed to evacuate the impoverished residents and provide them with temporary or alternative housing. People living in areas deemed unsafe in Al-Duweika and

were forced out in a manner which breached the international standards that states must observe while carrying out evictions.

Trials of officials

It also took 14 months for charges of manslaughter of the 119 victims of the rockslide to be brought against government officials: Major General Mahmoud Yassin, Deputy Governor of the Western Area of Cairo, two former heads of the Manshiyet Nasser District, the manager and deputy manager of the local Housing Department, and the heads of the local Rocks and Property Departments. The first round of trials took four months, when on May, 2010 the Manshiyat Nasser Misdemeanor Court sentenced the deputy governor Mahmoud Yassin, to five years of imprisonment.Egypt jails government officials over Cairo rockslide
BBC Seven other officials were sentenced to three years each. This verdict was appealed with two acquitted and the rest receiving shorter sentences. A third round of appeal at the highest court, the Court of Cassation, the court amended the remaining one sentences to a one-year suspended prison sentence on September 16^th, 2014, days after the sixth anniversary of the disaster. In the end, no one was jailed for the Duweika disaster, even though all evidence pointed to it being the cause of man-made interventions, as well as complacency from district officials.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cairo Landslide, 2008 Landslides in 2008 Landslides in Egypt 2008 in Egypt