Sunday Times 2
India landslide rescuers press on as toll hits 73
View(s):NEW DELHI, Aug 2 (AFP) -Rescuers continued digging today despite ‘very slim chances’ of finding any more people alive in the mud and debris from a major landslide in western India, where 73 have been killed.
Indian villager Chandrakant Zhanjare, who lost 13 members of his family, breaks down as he sits on an uprooted tree near the spot which was once his ancestral home, at Malin Village of Pune district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra (AFP)
Seventy-three bodies and eight survivors have now been pulled from the site where a village once stood in a remote part of western Maharashtra state, but incessant rains, marshy terrain and strong winds have hampered rescue efforts.
“Whole night the operation was on. We were able to recover 73 dead, eight alive,” Alok Awasthi, commandant of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), told NDTV news channel adding half the work had been completed.
The rescue operation could continue another two days due to difficult conditions, state relief and rehabilitation minister Patangrao Kadam said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
Grieving relatives have been rushing to identify bodies and attending mass cremations at their village after losing whole families as tonnes of earth and trees came crashing down onto the homes below on July 30.
“I’m shell-shocked… our roots (at Malin) have been wiped out in an instant,” Vilas Jhanjre, a factory worker, told The Hindu newspaper after he failed to find his parents’ bodies at the wiped-out village and nearby hospital.
Disaster experts and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan have blamed the landslide on deforestation and construction work on the hills.
| Eight killed as landslide hits Nepal, sparking flood fears
KATHMANDU, Aug 2 (AFP) -A massive landslide in northeastern Nepal left at least eight people dead and dozens missing today, burying a hydropower plant and putting several villages at risk of flash floods due to debris blocking a major river, officials said. The landslide struck in the early hours, burying two dozen homes before dumping mud and stones into the Sunkoshi river, northeast of the capital Kathmandu, an official in the prime minister’s office told AFP. “We are trying to find a way to release the blocked water safely,” said Prakash Adhikari, press adviser to the prime minister. The government has declared the area a “flood crisis zone” and ordered the army to use explosives to try to clear the river. |