Church Scaffolding Collapse in Ethiopia Kills Dozens During St. Mary Gathering

# Church Scaffolding Collapse in Ethiopia Kills Dozens During St. Mary Gathering

*Event date: October 1, 2025*

By NeoTechNews Desk

A church under construction in Ethiopia's Amhara region became the site of a mass-casualty collapse on October 1, 2025, when wooden scaffolding failed during a St. Mary religious gathering, killing at least 25 people and injuring far more, with a later state-media report putting the death toll at 36.

AP reported that the collapse happened at Menjar Shenkora Arerti Mariam Church in northern Ethiopia as worshippers gathered for an annual celebration of St. Mary. Witness accounts cited by AP said many worshippers had climbed the wooden scaffolding to look at a ceiling mural when the support structure gave way. The agency quoted a witness who said people had been praying when the collapse began and people fell from above.

The early casualty count from AP was already severe. A local clinician, Seyoum Altaye, said 25 people had been confirmed dead and more than 100 injured. AP also reported that the victims included children and elderly people, and that local officials warned the death toll could rise. That warning proved important because TRT World, citing Ethiopian state media and a local official, later reported that at least 36 people had died and 200 had been injured.

The difference between those counts does not necessarily reflect contradiction so much as the familiar pattern of rising tolls after chaotic structural disasters. AP's account appears closer to the immediate aftermath, while TRT's excerpt reflects a later official update tied to state media. What both reports clearly establish is that the casualty level was exceptionally high and that the collapse occurred while the unfinished church was crowded with worshippers participating in a major annual observance.

The physical conditions described in the supplied evidence point to a dangerous temporary structure rather than a completed building failure. AP said the scaffolding was wooden and supporting the church under construction. TRT referred to makeshift scaffolding and images of collapsed poles amid dense debris. Those details matter because they frame the event as a construction-site collapse affecting a religious gathering, not the failure of a finished public venue.

The location also shaped the response challenge. TRT said Arerti is roughly 70 kilometers east of Addis Ababa and that some of the more seriously injured were taken to hospitals in the capital. AP reported that the local hospital sought help from the Red Cross to care for the injured. Taken together, those details suggest both the scale of the emergency and the strain placed on local medical capacity.

The supplied excerpts do not identify the victims by name or establish whether construction standards, supervision or crowd management failures contributed to the collapse. They do not say whether officials opened a formal criminal or engineering investigation. What is firmly supported is the core sequence: during a St. Mary gathering at an unfinished church in Amhara, worshippers climbed or stood on scaffolding, the structure collapsed, and dozens were killed or hurt.

For Ethiopia's Christian communities, the event was more than a construction accident. It struck during a significant religious observance and at a place still being built as a center of worship. On the event date, the only responsible conclusion from the supplied evidence is that a preventable structural failure may have turned a sacred gathering into one of the country's deadliest church-related accidents of the year, with the final toll still moving upward as rescuers and medics worked through the aftermath.