Landslides in India's Kerala kill 93, hundreds still missing

[July 30, 2024]  By Chris Thomas, Munsif Vengattil and Jose Devasia

KOCHI, India (Reuters) -Landslides swept through tea estates and villages in southern India's Kerala on Tuesday, killing at least 93 people, local media reported, after heavy rain collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.

The hillsides gave way after midnight following torrential rainfall on Monday in the Wayanad district of Kerala, a state renowned as one of India's most popular tourist destinations. Most of the victims were tea estate workers and their families who were asleep in makeshift shelters.

Television images showed rescue workers scrambling through uprooted trees and flattened tin structures as boulders lay strewn across the hillsides and muddy water gushed through. Rescuers were being pulled across a stream, carrying stretchers and other equipment to rescue people.

One man was stuck in chest-high mud for hours, TV pictures showed, unable to free himself until he was finally reached by emergency workers.

At least 93 people were killed in the landslides, and 100 families were stranded after the landslides, local Asianet TV reported.

Nearly 350 families lived in the affected region, mostly given over to tea and cardamom estates, and 250 people had been rescued so far, state officials said.

Army engineers were deployed to help build a replacement bridge after the one that linked the affected area to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed, the chief minister's office said in a statement.

"A small team has managed to cross the bridge across the river and reach (the site) but we will need to send many more to provide help and to start rescue operations," Kerala chief secretary V. Venu told reporters, adding that many people were still missing.

The weather office said there had been extremely heavy rainfall over north and central Kerala on Tuesday, with more rain predicted through the day.

Although the area is a well known tourist destination, local residents were the most affected as all tourist excursions had been halted since Monday due to the rain.

Rescuers help residents to move to a safer place, at a landslide site after multiple landslides in the hills, in Wayanad, in the southern state of Kerala, India, July 30, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer

Tuesday's landslides are the worst disaster in the state since 2018 when heavy floods killed almost 400 people.

"We fear the gravity of this tragedy is much more. Rescue operations are being carried out by various agencies on a war footing," state cabinet minister M. B. Rajesh told news agency ANI.

Rashid Padikkalparamban, a resident involved in the relief efforts, said there were at least three landslides in the area starting around midnight, which washed away the bridge connecting the Mundakkai estates to Chooralmala.

"Many people who were working in the estates and staying in makeshift tents inside are feared trapped or missing," he said.

Padikkalparamban, along with about a hundred others from his area, relocated to the nearby resort of Tree Valley. Asianet TV reported it had received a phone call from someone in the resort that rescue officials had not yet been able to reach.

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who won a seat in Wayanad in the recent general election, but resigned as he was also elected from his family bastion in the north, said he had spoken to the state chief minister to ensure coordination with all agencies.

"The devastation unfolding in Wayanad is heartbreaking," he said in a message on X. "I have urged the union government to extend all possible support."

(Reporting by Jose Devasia, Chris Thomas, Munsif Vengatill and Sudipto Ganguly, writing by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Ros Russell)

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