Cairo landslide - Mokatam

How can I help?

A few people have arrived on my blog from google searching for information about the landslide, so I have decided to make a post adding a few links to reports, photos etc which are now up on the web.

This tragedy occurred on Saturday 6th Sept and is in one of the very poor areas of Cairo - mainly Coptic area - where the Zebaleen people who manage much of Cairo's rubbish and are world famous for recycling live. This is also the area you have to pass through to reach St Simon Tanner which I blogged about earlier this year. The area is also known as El Doweiqa or Manshiet Nasser or Garbage City.

The government have taken a lot of criticism for not helping more especially in removing the blocks. But as Dave Petley - Geography Professor points out in his blog, it is likely that some of these blocks weigh many times more than 2300 tonnes and blasting maybe the only means of removing them (and obviously there will be no survivors - if any one is still alive down there - resulting from that).

Here is a map indicating the approx location of the tragedy within Cairo. The map is my walking route from Citadel (marker on the left) to St Simon (marker on the right) but I have added the top marker in the urban sprawl to give an indication of the location of the tragedy (it is by no means precise but it occurred in this part of Cairo).


View Larger Map

Here are various links:

Egyptian Red Crescent bulletin on the tragedy (pdf file)

photos on Flickr showing the rock slide

Egyptian government portal with story about assistance

One of the many news reports on the tragedy

link to You Tube videos of it

Google search query for news reports about it

How you can help with money and stuff: How can I help?

Here is how you can make a donation to the Red Crescent - I guess you may be able to ask them to earmark your funds for this purpose:

Make a donation to the International Red Cross Red Crescent

Other links:

Egyptian Red Crescent contact details (their website is not working for English at present)

More about the Zabbaleen people