Tragedy Strikes Ethiopian Church Celebration as Scaffolding Collapses

Fri Oct 10 2025 17:31:43 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

A joyous religious festival turns into a tragedy as scaffolding collapses in an Ethiopian church, resulting in 36 deaths and numerous injuries. Survivors share their sorrow and the urgent need for improved safety regulations.

A religious celebration in Arerti, Ethiopia, turned tragic when a makeshift scaffolding inside the Orthodox Christian church collapsed, killing 36 worshippers and injuring around 200. The incident highlights the urgent need for stricter safety regulations in construction, as the affected families mourn their losses.

A day after the joyous celebration of a religious festival, an Orthodox Christian church in the small Ethiopian town of Arerti was holding mass funerals for the 36 worshippers killed when scaffolding inside the building collapsed.

Hundreds of mourners walked with coffins draped in colourful cloth into the compound of the Arerti Mariam church while clerics conducted burial rituals. Among them was 22-year-old Fikre Tilahun, who told the BBC that he had lost his mother in the tragedy. It's difficult to lose your mother, very difficult, he said.

Worshippers had gathered at the church, about 70 km (45 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, on Wednesday as part of the annual Orthodox Christian celebration of St Mary. Eyewitness Gebreweld Tesfaye described how many attendees climbed onto the makeshift scaffolding to view a newly painted mural when disaster struck. The staircase was entirely wooden, and there were many people moving upstairs at the time. As the congregants were going, the wooden structure gave way, leading to the collapse, he said.

Chaos ensued as panic spread among the crowd, with people scrambling to help those trapped beneath the rubble. Fikre had rushed to the church and then a health center, frantically searching for his mother, only to find her body at the hospital. Her death is part of the tragic toll that currently stands at 36, with about 200 individuals injured, some critically.

The archbishop of the local diocese, Megabi Hadis Nekatibeb, described the disaster as incredibly tragic and heart-breaking. The government has expressed condolences and emphasized the need for prioritizing safety in construction projects, reflecting on the prevalent issues of poorly enforced health and safety regulations in Ethiopia. As families continue to mourn their losses, the call for reform in safety standards grows louder.