Six more bodies, including those of two children, have been retrieved on Wednesday from the site of a massive garbage landslide in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, raising the death toll so far to 30, police said.

A police report shows at least 39 people are still missing following the collapse at the landfill in the northern district of Kiteezi that occurred on Saturday, which buried people, homes, and livestock in mountains of fetid waste.

“Today, the team retrieved six dead bodies by 1730 hours (1430 GMT). This makes a total of 30 bodies so far recovered,” the Uganda Police Force said on X, formerly Twitter.

An official previously said that at least five children were among those killed.

Excavators have been churning through the huge rubbish mounds as the desperate search for survivors continues following the collapse.

The incident has been described as a “national disaster” by Kampala city mayor Erias Lukwago, who had warned at the weekend that “many, many more could be still buried in the heap”.

He had previously raised concerns over risks of overflowing waste from the site, which was established in 1996 and takes in almost all garbage collected across Kampala.

President Yoweri Museveni said on Sunday he had directed the army’s special forces to help in the search and rescue operation and demanded to know who allowed people to live near such a “potentially hazardous and dangerous heap”.