Rescue workers in Maharashtra battled difficult terrain and bad weather on Thursday as they searched for survivors of a landslide that killed at least 10 people in a mountain village after incessant rain soaked the slopes, officials said.
A wave of extreme heat, wildfires, torrential rain and flooding has wreaked havoc around the world in recent days, raising new fears about the pace of climate change.
The land gave way in the middle of the night in the remote hamlet of Irshalwadi, about 60km from Mumbai.
“Ten bodies have been recovered and more than 80 people rescued, but it was estimated that at least 225 people lived in the hamlet,” the state’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told the state assembly.
Initial reports said about 100 people were feared trapped under the debris and rescue workers were struggling in heavy rain and fog to find survivors nearly 12 hours after the disaster, a Reuters witness and media reported.
“The debris at some of the places is almost 9m deep,” Mr SB Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told the Indian Express newspaper.
“It is difficult to bring in heavy machinery to this place. It is a 2.8km trek to reach the spot and we have to remove the debris manually, which is likely to take a lot of time.”
Some pockets of the district, dotted with old forts and laced with trekking trails, received as much as 400mm rain in the last 24 hours, according to the weather department.
More rain is expected over the weekend, a weather department official said, and a red alert had been issued for the coast of Maharashtra and Gujarat to the north, which has also been battered by rain this week.
The rain has closed schools, flooded roads and disrupted transport in both Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Flash floods, landslides and accidents caused by heavy rain have killed more than 100 people in India since the onset of the monsoon in June, mostly in the north which has seen 41 per cent more rain than normal, according to the India Meteorological Department.
Reuters
