Rescue teams continue to pick through the rubble late on Friday, searching for survivors and victims of the disaster which took place the previous day in the Eastern Bududa district.
An unknown number of people remain missing.
Hilary Onek, Uganda’s minister for relief, disaster preparedness and refugees, said “Forty-one lives have been lost but they’re still going ahead digging, trying to look for whether there are other bodies in the riverbed somewhere,”
Survivors spoke of panic and horror as water cascaded down the hillside.
Government meteorologist Godfrey Mujuni said it was the River Sume, a tributary of the River Manafwa, that had burst its banks.
At least hundred people were reported killed in a landslide in Bududa in March 2010 and in 2012, landslides destroyed three villages.
