Funerals held after scaffolding collapse kills 36

A day after the joyous celebration of a religious festival, an Orthodox Christian church in the small Ethiopian town of Arerti was holding mass funerals for the 36 worshippers killed when scaffolding inside the building collapsed.

Hundreds of mourners walked with coffins draped in colourful cloth into the compound of the Arerti Mariam church while clerics conducted burial rituals.

Among them was 22-year-old Fikre Tilahun, who told the BBC that he had lost his mother in the tragedy.

“It’s difficult to lose your mother, very difficult,” he said.

Worshippers had gathered at the church, about 70 km (45 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, on Wednesday as part of the annual Orthodox Christian celebration of St Mary.

Eyewitness Gebreweld Tesfaye told the BBC that a sizeable number of the worshippers decided to climb onto the makeshift scaffolding to view a newly painted mural on the church ceiling when disaster struck.

“The staircase was entirely wooden, and there were many people moving upstairs at the time. As the congregants were going, the wooden structure gave way, leading to the collapse,” Mr Gebreweld said.

Other eyewitnesses said that chaos ensued, as people scattered in panic or tried to save the lives of people trapped beneath the rubble.

Mr Fikre told the BBC that as soon as he heard of the disaster, he rushed to the church, and then to a health centre to look for her mother, but she was not at either place.

“My cousin called me after that. And then I went to the hospital. Her body was there,” Mr Fikre said.

She was among the 36 dead, with the emergency services saying that the death toll could rise as some of the injured, numbering about 200, were in a critical condition. Some of them have been transferred to Addis Ababa for treatment.

The archbishop of the local diocese, Megabi Hadis Nekatibeb, described the disaster as “incredibly tragic and heart-breaking”.

Mr Fikre said life would not be the same for him and his younger brother without their mother.

“She raised us by making and selling tella [a locally brewed liquor],” he told the BBC.

The government expressed its condolences to the relatives of the victims, and said that “safety must be given priority” during all construction projects.

Health and safety regulations are poorly enforced in Ethiopia and construction disasters are common.