Buried after the skeleton collapse, kills 36

A day after the joyous holiday of a religious festival, mass burials were held in the small Ethiopian city of Arearty for the 36 people killed in the skeleton inside the Orthodox Christian Church, collapsed.

Hundreds of sorrows went with coffins, draped in a colored cloth in the union of the nearby church, while the clergy conducted funeral rituals after the disaster at St. Mariam Church.

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

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

Although the church was still under construction, people had gathered in the building on Wednesday during the annual Orthodox Christian holiday of St. Mariam.

Eyewitnesses GebReld Tesfaye told the BBC that a large number of worshipers have decided to climb the makeshift skeleton to see a new painted mural on the ceiling of the church when a disaster is hit.

“The staircase was entirely wooden and there were many people who moved upstairs at that time. While the congregants were walking, the wooden structure stepped down, leading to the collapse,” said G -n Gebrewel.

Other eyewitnesses said chaos was coming, as people were scattered in panic or trying to save the lives of people trapped under the ruins.

Fikr told the BBC that when he heard about the disaster, he rushed to the church, and then to a health center to look for his mother, but she is not in any place.

“My cousin called me afterwards. And then I went to the hospital. Her body was there,” said G -n Fiche.

It was among the 36 dead, with emergency services saying that the death number could increase, as some of the wounded, numbering about 200, were in critical condition. Some of them were transferred to Addis Ababa, about 70 km (45 miles), for treatment.

Archbishop of the local diocese Megabi Hadis Loisbeb described the disaster as “an incredibly tragic and broken heart”.

Fikr said that life would not be the same for him and his smaller brother without their mother.

“She raised us by making and selling bodies (local alcohol),” he told the BBC.

The government expressed its condolences to the victims’ relatives and said “safety should be given priority” during all construction projects.

The rules of health and safety are poorly applied in Ethiopia, and construction disasters are common.