The dumpsite in the northern district of Kiteezi collapsed on Saturday after heavy rains, burying people, homes and livestock in mountains of fetid rubbish.

“Thirty-nine people were registered as missing,” Kampala metropolitan police spokesman Patrick Onyango said, adding that the death toll had risen to 26.

“These include 35 community members and four garbage collectors,” he said, drawing information from a preliminary recovery operation.

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.

Several areas in Uganda and other parts of East Africa have been battered by heavy rains recently, including Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent.

Devastating mudslides in a remote mountainous area in southern Ethiopia last month killed around 250 people.