The count of confirmed deaths in the twin landslides that devastated a part of Kerala's hilly Wayanad region recently mounted to 407 with 186 people are still missing. The victims include 27 children and 76 women.
CM Pinarayi Vijayan said after an all-party meeting in Wayanad that Army officials had apprised him of the diminishing possibility of finding survivors. "All those who could be saved have been rescued," he quoted them as saying.
State revenue minister K Rajan said authorities were trying to confirm the identities of those officially reported missing since the disaster struck recently by matching the available details with ration cards and electoral rolls.
The number of injured stands at 225, with 96 of them being treated at various hospitals. CM Vijayan said the mission to find those missing was being hampered by intermittent rain and could take a few more days. A cabinet sub-committee comprising four ministers is coordinating the effort.
Over 1,600 rescue workers, including from the Army, Navy, NDRF and police, are engaged in the operation. Volunteers said they required heavy machinery to remove large uprooted trees as the available excavators had proved inadequate for the task.
19 pregnant women among 8,000 people at 82 relief camps
An official said, “An IAF C 17 aircraft airlifted the Bailey bridge from Delhi to Kannur along with three search and rescue dogs of the Army. These trained dogs will help search for survivors in areas that are currently inaccessible.” The state govt published a list of people missing people since the disaster. The youngest is 14-day-old while the oldest is 85-year-old. The list includes four members of a family from Uttar Pradesh and another from Odisha’s Bhubaneswar. CM Vijayan’s cabinet met earlier in the day to discuss Kerala’s response to the calamity, the worst since the 2018 floods in the state that claimed almost 500 lives, and the worst single-site natural disaster ever. He said at a presser in Thiruvananthapuram, “In the two days since the landslides, we have rescued 1,592 people. This is the outcome of a coordinated and extensive mission to save as many lives as possible.”
