The 2008 Cairo landslide happened on September 6, 2008, in Al-Duwayqa, an informal settlement in the Manshiyet Nasser neighborhood of east Cairo, Egypt. 119 people died in the rockslide.[1]
Boulders weighing as much as 70 tons rolled into the shantytown following the landslide.[2] After most of the neighborhood had been flattened, those families still living in the slum were evicted and any remaining buildings were flattened by the government.[2] As a result hundreds of families were left homeless and many still live in squalor near the site of the disaster, despite government promises to find them homes.[3]
The cause of the landslide has not been definitively determined, but theories included leaked sewage from development projects that eroded rocks.[4][5] An internal investigation determined that the slide was caused by "fate" and no one would be blamed for it.[6]
Amnesty International reports that thousands of Egyptians still continue to live in unsafe slums.[3]
In May 2010, a court found Mahmoud Yassin, a Cairo deputy governor, guilty of negligence and sentenced him for 5 years of imprisonment. Seven other officials were sentenced to 3 years each.