This archive report was first published on 12 July 2019.
On a fateful day in July 2019, a torrential downpour in Kampala, Uganda, brought down a school wall, claiming the lives of six homeless children. The incident was met with a collective shrug by the media, with the story receiving only a passing mention before being swiftly forgotten.
However, the real losers in this tragedy were the church and the city printers. The church had recently imposed a 25% levy on condolence money collected during funeral services, which would have netted millions of shillings if the wall had fallen on the school side. Meanwhile, the city printers missed out on orders for colourful Order of Service booklets, a common practice at funerals.
The incident served as a stark reminder of Uganda's vulnerability to climate change. The prolonged rains that caused the school wall to collapse were a stark contrast to the drizzle that brought down a perimeter wall at Makerere University several years ago. The difference was that the university's engineers had forgotten to mix cement in the sand for joining the bricks, a mistake that was rectified before the wall collapsed.
Today, Uganda continues to grapple with the consequences of climate change. The annual floods and landslides on the slopes of Mount Elgon are becoming biannual, with the government's resettlement efforts struggling to keep pace. The houses built for those displaced by the floods have been found to be shoddily constructed, with some falling apart within months of completion.
As the country struggles to adapt to the changing climate, it is clear that civil engineering expertise and infrastructure are woefully lacking. The recent commissioning of a site for the construction of low-cost houses, with a price tag of $40,000 for a one-room apartment, has raised concerns that more children will remain homeless and shoddily constructed walls will continue to claim lives.
As long as the walls continue to fall on the right-wrong side, life will go on, and business will remain as usual. But for the people of Uganda, the consequences of climate change are all too real.
