India landslide toll hits 126 as rain hampers rescue work

Relief personnel conduct a search and rescue operation at a site following landslides in Wayanad on July 30, 2024. Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains struck tea plantations and killed at least 93 people on July 30, with at least 250 others rescued from mud and debris, officials said. (AFP)

WAYANAD, India – Relentless downpours and howling winds hampered Wednesday’s search for survivors of landslides that struck Indian tea plantations and killed 126 people, most believed to be laborers and their families.

Days of torrential monsoon rains have battered the southern coastal state of Kerala, with blocked roads into the Wayanad district disaster area complicating relief efforts.

With the only bridge connecting the worst-hit villages of Chooralmala and Mundakkai washed away, rescue teams were forced to cart bodies on stretchers out of the disaster zone using a makeshift zipline erected over raging flood waters.

Several who managed to flee the initial impact of the landslides found themselves caught in a nearby river that had burst its banks, volunteer rescuer Arun Dev told AFP at a hospital treating survivors.

“Those who escaped were swept away along with houses, temples and schools,” he said. 

Wayanad is famed for the tea estates that crisscross its hilly countryside, which rely on a large pool of labourers for planting and harvest.

Several plantations were hit by two successive landslides before dawn on Tuesday.

A number of brick-walled row homes built to accommodate seasonal workers were inundated by a powerful wall of brown sludge as labourers and their families slept inside. 

Other buildings were caked with mud as the force of the landslide scattered cars, corrugated iron and other debris around the disaster site.

A Wayanad district official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said 126 bodies had been recovered so far with the toll expected to rise further.

More than 3,000 people were sheltering in emergency relief camps around Wayanad district, the state government said.

At least 572 milimetres (22.5 inches) of rain fell in the two days leading up to the landslide, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a statement.

Kerala’s disaster agency said more rain and strong winds were forecast for Thursday with the likelihood of “damage to unsafe structures” elsewhere in the state.

‘Adverse weather conditions’

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who until recently represented Wayanad in parliament, said he had been unable to go through with a planned visit to the disaster.

“Due to incessant rains and adverse weather conditions we have been informed by authorities that we will not be able to land,” he said in a post on social media platform X. 

“Our thoughts are with the people of Wayanad at this difficult time,” he added. 

Monsoon rains across the region from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies.

They are vital for agriculture and therefore the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security for South Asia’s nearly two billion people.

But they also bring destruction in the form of landslides and floods.

The number of fatal floods and landslides has increased in recent years, and experts say climate change is exacerbating the problem.

“Events like landslides, they are part of these climate change-triggered heavy rainfall disasters,” Kartiki Negi of Indian environment think tank Climate Trends told AFP.

“India will continue to see more and more of these kinds of impacts in the future,” she added.

Damming, deforestation and development projects in India have also exacerbated the human toll.

Intense monsoon storms battered India this month, flooding parts of the financial capital Mumbai, while lightning in the eastern state of Bihar killed at least 10 people.

Nearly 500 people were killed around Kerala in 2018 during the worst flooding to hit the state in almost a century.

India’s worst landslide in recent decades was in 1998, when rockfalls triggered by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 220 people and buried the tiny village of Malpa in the Himalayas.