Heavy rains kill over 65 in Maha
PUNE: At least 67 people have died in Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages in the western state.
In Ratnagiri’s Taliye, rains triggered a landslide after a portion of a hillock came down on Thursday, burying 32 houses on its way and trapping nearly hundred people in the debris. By Friday, the toll from the incident climbed to 36 as rescue personnel escalated search and relief operations.
A team of locals and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel pulled out bodies from the debris manually as heavy rain and difficult terrain did not let earth moving machinery reach the spot.
Parts of Maharashtra received up to 594 mm rainfall over 24 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow.
“Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers,” chief minister Uddhav Thackeray said. “Dams and rivers are overflowing. We are forced to release water from dams, and, accordingly, we are moving people
residing near the river banks to safer places.”
The navy and army are helping with rescue operation in coastal areas, he added.
At least four people died in Mumbai after a building collapsed, and another 27 were killed in other parts of Maharashtra due to landslides and accidents linked to the heavy rainfall, state government officials said.
Separately, around 22 people are feared trapped in two landslide incidents in Satara’s Patan tehsil, which received 300 mm rainfall in the 24 hours to Friday.
According to state relief and rehabilitation minister Vijay Wadettiwar, the villagers in Taliye were alerted and moved to safer locations in anticipation of heavy rains as the IMD had issued red alert.
“We had relocated villagers of Taliye few days back to safer location considering the risky terrain. However, the locals moved back to same place before landslide incident,” said Wadettiwar.
According to Raigad district collector Nidhi Choudhari, around 32 houses came under the debris of soil after chunk of hillside gave away. Around 10 persons survived with moderate injuries as they quickly evacuated themselves when the tragedy was unfolding.
“Based on the information from locals and survivors, we can say almost 30-35 people are still feared trapped. We have pressed more rescuers into service to search people trapped under the debris,” said Choudhari.
While the landslide occurred on Thursday evening, rescue operations started only by Friday morning due to visibility issues. At the same time, it was dark and there was no visibility, which delayed the rescue operations, said Raigad district guardian minister Aditi Tatkare.
In Satara, landslides were reported at Ambeghar and Mirgaon villages which witnessed heavy rain in the past 24 hours.
Satara superintendent of police Ajay Kumar Bansal said that the landslides were reported on Thursday night in which total of seven to eight houses came under debris.
He said that the local rescue teams have reached both spots and the rescue work is underway, with some people already rescued. “At Ambeghar, four houses came under the soil following the landslide and there are 13 to 14 people feared trapped there, while in Mirgaon, three houses were affected and eight to 10 people are feared trapped,” said Bansal.
He added that due to continuous rains, the roads leading to these areas were either blocked or inundated making it difficult for taking big earth moving machinery to assist in the rescue operations.
Patan, along with neighbouring Mahabaleshwar, received record rainfall on Thursday. According to IMD, Mahabaleshwar recorded 594 mm rainfall in the 24 hours ending Friday morning, a record at the hill station.