Death toll in rain-battered Kerala landslide rises to 43
▶ Member of India air safety panel says nothing was done after alarm was raised following similar crash in 2011
The death toll from a massive landslide in India’s southern Kerala state increased to 43 yesterday as search and rescue operations continued in torrential monsoon rain.
The landslide swept away homes of workers on a tea plantation in Idukki district on Friday, hours before the state was struck by a second tragedy when a flight from Dubai crashed in the coastal city of Kozhikode.
At least 18 people including the two pilots were killed when the Air India Express flight skidded off the runway and plunged down a bank while landing in wet weather on Friday evening.
The landslide in Idukki occurred early in the morning while the workers were sleeping. Twenty-six bodies were recovered by Friday night, according to local police, with the toll rising yesterday.
“We have stopped the rescue operation for the day because of the rain. The operation will continue until the last body is recovered,” Idukki district official H Dineshan told Reuters.
Local media reported that about 78 people were believed to live in the area, many of whom were missing. But the Idukki district administration told the Hindustan Times that the number could be higher because many students who usually stay in hostels had returned home because of the coronavirus pandemic.
At least six teams of the National Disaster Response Force are involved in the rescue operations in Idukki, officials said.
Photos of the site at Rajamala, about 25 kilometres from the popular hill resort of Munnar, showed teams of rescuers and excavators operating in a vast expanse of mud hills. Sniffer dogs were being used to help locate bodies.
The chief minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, said police, fire services and the revenue and forest departments were helping with the rescue and recovery. He said compensation of 500,000 rupees (Dh24,500) would be made to the families of those killed in the landslide.
The India Meteorological Department issued alerts for heavy rainfall in several districts of Kerala, including a red alert for Idukki.
The annual monsoon from June to September brings rain for India’s farmers but also causes widespread destruction in the country and the rest of South Asia.
This year more than 550 people have died in India, Bangladesh and Nepal and more than 9.6 million people have been displaced by flooding since June, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
A senior Indian aviation safety official advised against allowing any wide-body aircraft landing on table-top runways at Kozhikode airport in Kerala in wet weather.
Capt Mohan Ranganathan, a member of the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Committee in India, said such landings were very risky, especially for widebody planes.
The warning came after an Air India Express flight from Dubai to Kerala crash landed at Kozhikode Airport, also known as Calicut, on Friday night.
The plane overshot the landing strip, plunged into a 10.6 metre gorge and broke into two, killing 18 passengers and injuring more than 100.
“This was a disaster waiting to happen. Runway 10 at Calicut should never be used in a tailwind and when it’s raining,” Capt Ranganathan told The National.
“If the runway is wet, it is positively dangerous, so that is why we [the advisory committee] had voiced our objections and said if you do not prevent that, you are going to have an accident.
“We wrote that in 2011.” Capt Ranganathan was a member of a panel that was set up by India’s civil aviation ministry after an Air India Express flight from Dubai crashed at Mangalore airport in May 2010, killing 158 passengers.
“Mangalore is equally dangerous. Mangalore and Calicut should not be used for any wide-body aircraft at any time,” he said.
Mangalore and Kozhikode airports have table-top runways with limited space at the end of the airstrip located on plateaus overlooking a gorge.
He said that planes larger than a Boeing 737 or an Airbus 320 should not be permitted to land on Runway 10 of Kozhikode airport, where Friday’s crash occurred.
“Both Kozhikode and Mangalore are definitely unsuitable for wide-body aircraft, not just in the rains, at any time,” said Capt Ranganathan.
He said no action was taken a decade ago despite the committee’s recommendations.
There has been no response to an email sent by The National to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation about the questions raised by Capt Ranganathan.
The country’s civil aviation ministry said an investigation into the cause of last week’s crash of the Boeing 737 with 184 passengers and six crew on board has been opened.
Indian media reported the pilot of Vande Bharat repatriation Flight IX 1344 requested permission from air traffic control to land on Runway 10 instead of Runway 28 in Kozhikode.
Capt Ranganathan said RunKozhikode way 28 may not have been an option because of reduced visibility as a result of heavy cloud cover.
He said Runway 10 was not flat and the safety buffer zone was not up to the task.
“It’s is a tabletop runway with a downslope,” Capt Ranganathan said.
“What we found during the audit is that if an aircraft were to reject take-off, it will go off the end of the runway and there is no way the pilot can stop it because of the slope.”
He said the casualties would have been higher if a bigger plane was involved.
“Anything larger than [an Airbus] 320 or a [Boeing] 737 series is asking for trouble,” he said.
“If there was an accident with a wide-body aircraft in Calicut, the death toll would have been very, very high.
“It would not be 20 to 150 people dying, it will be about 400 people dying in an accident.”
More passengers survived in because the wings did not break and start a fire, rescue officials said.
In the Mangalore crash a decade ago, also in wet conditions, the plane plunged into a forested valley and burst into flames, with firefighters struggling to reach the site.
“This aircraft [Flight IX 1344] also would have caught fire if the wings had broken. But since the wings did not break, there was no fuel spilt,” Capt Ranganathan said.
“In Calicut, the drop is only about 30 metres. In Mangalore, the drop was 100 metres – the wings broke on impact and fuel spilt.”
Others called for action to prevent another crash.
Dr Azad Moopen, managing director of Aster hospitals, based in the UAE and India, said the length of the Calicut runway was compromised and expansion was critical.
Describing a “miraculous escape” for the passengers, he said: “Let us not lose any more lives.
“Calicut has a 9,000 metre tabletop runway, which is not enough for safe landing during inclement weather and poor visibility conditions especially in the night due to the hilly surroundings.”
Dr Moopen called for action from state and federal authorities to improve safety.
“Political parties and people’s representatives must take this up as a top priority, as the government has already decided to acquire the land, and the airport authority had agreed to allot the required funds to proceed with runway expansion,” he said.
In the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, sent condolences to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the crash and Friday’s landslide in Kerala state that killed 43 people.
“You remain in our prayers during these difficult times,” Sheikh Mohamed wrote on Twitter.
Runway 10 should never be used in a tailwind and when it’s raining. If the runway is wet, it is positively dangerous CAPT MOHAN RANGANATHAN Civil aviation safety adviser