Soldiers and rescuers worked through slush and rocks under steady rain in India’s Kerala state on Wednesday, searching for survivors and bodies after monsoon landslides claimed more than 165 lives.
Nearly 1,000 people have been rescued from the hillside villages and tea and cardamom estates in Wayanad district, but 225 remain missing, authorities said. At least 166 people have died and 195 were injured, though the local Asianet news channel reported the death toll as 179.
The heavy rain, which turned one of India’s prime tourist destinations into a disaster zone, triggered landslides early Tuesday, sending torrents of mud, water, and boulders downhill, burying or sweeping people away as they slept. This disaster is the worst in the state since the devastating floods of 2018. Experts noted that the area had experienced heavy rainfall over the past two weeks, softening the soil and making it susceptible to landslides when extreme rain hit on Monday.
The Indian Army has rescued 1,000 people and begun constructing an alternate bridge after the main bridge linking the worst-affected area of Mundakkai to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed. Near the site of the destroyed bridge, a land excavator was slowly removing trees and boulders from the debris, while rescue workers in raincoats carefully navigated the slush and rocks under persistent rain.
“We are quite sure there are multiple bodies here,” said Hamsa T.A., a fire and rescue worker, pointing to the debris. “There were many houses here, and people living inside have been missing.”
The landslides primarily occurred on the upper slopes of hills, cascading down into the valleys, according to M.R. Ajith Kumar, a senior state police officer. “The focus right now is to search the entire uphill area for stranded people and recover as many bodies as possible,” he said.
