Eleven dead as mudslide buries houses above Iyık Janyl

IYIK JANYL — Eleven people were killed when a mudslide buried houses in the Tash-Kyya quarter on the hillside above the southern districts of Iyık Janyl late on Sunday night, the city's emergency department said yesterday. Seven houses were destroyed and about twenty damaged.

The slope gave way after three days of heavy rain. Tash-Kyya, one of the largest of the hillside quarters known as Jogorku, is built of mud brick, cinder block and salvaged concrete up stairways and footpaths that no vehicle can climb. Rescuers, firemen and neighbours dug by hand and by lamp through the night and carried the injured down the stairs to ambulances waiting at the last road.

Fourteen people were taken to hospital. The emergency department said it had found no one else missing by yesterday evening, and that families from about forty houses near the slide had been moved to a school in the Lower Town.

Residents said the slope had been cracking for years. "We told them in 2016 and in 2018," said a man who had helped dig. "They said the quarter is not on their map." The city administration said it would survey the slopes of all the hillside quarters, and the archeparchy announced a requiem at the Cathedral for Friday.