At least 16 villagers in western Maharashtra, India, were killed in a deadly landslide on Thursday, while around 100 people mainly women and children are feared to be still trapped in there after the disaster.
A wave of extreme heat, wildfires, torrential rain and flooding has wreaked havoc around the world in recent days, raising new fears about the pace of climate change.
The land gave way in the middle of the night in the remote hamlet of Irshalwadi, in the western state of Maharashtra, about 60 km (37 miles) from Mumbai, officials said.
Ten bodies had been recovered and more than 80 people had been rescued, but it was estimated that at least 225 people lived in the hamlet, the state’s deputy chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, told the state assembly.
Initial reports said about 100 people were feared trapped under the debris and rescue workers were struggling in heavy rain and fog to find survivors nearly 12 hours after the disaster, media reported.
“The debris at some of the places is 10 to 29 feet deep,” S B Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told the Indian Express newspaper.
“It is difficult to bring in heavy machinery to this place. It is a 2.8 km trek to reach the spot and we have to remove the debris manually which is likely to take a lot of time.” A landslide in a nearby village killed more than 80 people two years ago.
Some pockets of the district, dotted with old forts and laced with trekking trails, received as much as 400 mm rain in the last 24 hours, according to the weather department.
More rain was expected on Thursday but not as heavy, a weather department official said, and a red alert had been issued for the coast of Maharashtra and Gujarat state to the north, which has also been battered by rain this week.
The rain has closed schools, flooded roads and disrupted transport in both Maharashtra and Gujarat.—AFP
