KOCHI
\nLandslides swept through tea estates and villages in southern India\u2019s Kerala on Tuesday, killing at least 107 people, local media reported, after heavy rain collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.
\nThe hillsides gave way after midnight following torrential rainfall on Monday in the Wayanad district of Kerala, a state renowned as one of India\u2019s most popular tourist destinations. Most of the victims were tea estate workers and their families who were asleep in makeshift shelters.
\nTelevision images showed rescue workers scrambling through uprooted trees and flattened tin structures as boulders lay strewn across the hillsides and muddy water gushed through. Rescuers were being pulled across a stream, carrying stretchers and other equipment to rescue people.
\nOne man was stuck in chest-high mud for hours, TV pictures showed, unable to free himself until he was finally reached by emergency workers.
\nAt least 93 people were killed in the landslides, and 100 families were stranded after the landslides, local Asianet TV reported.
\nNearly 350 families lived in the affected region, mostly given over to tea and cardamom estates, and 250 people had been rescued so far, state officials said.
\nArmy engineers were deployed to help build a replacement bridge after the one that linked the affected area to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed, the chief minister\u2019s office said in a statement.
\n\u201cA small team has managed to cross the bridge across the river and reach (the site) but we will need to send many more to provide help and to start rescue operations,\u201d Kerala chief secretary V. Venu told reporters, adding that many people were still missing.
\nThe weather office said there had been extremely heavy rainfall over north and central Kerala on Tuesday, with more rain predicted through the day.
\nAlthough the area is a well known tourist destination, local residents were the most affected as all tourist excursions had been halted since Monday due to the rain.
\nTuesday\u2019s landslides are the worst disaster in the state since 2018 when heavy floods killed almost 400 people.
\n\u201cWe fear the gravity of this tragedy is much more. Rescue operations are being carried out by various agencies on a war footing,\u201d state cabinet minister M. B. Rajesh told news agency ANI.
\nRashid Padikkalparamban, a resident involved in the relief efforts, said there were at least three landslides in the area starting around midnight, which washed away the bridge connecting the Mundakkai estates to Chooralmala.
\n\u201cMany people who were working in the estates and staying in makeshift tents inside are feared trapped or missing,\u201d he said.
\nPadikkalparamban, along with about a hundred others from his area, relocated to the nearby resort of Tree Valley. Asianet TV reported it had received a phone call from someone in the resort that rescue officials had not yet been able to reach.
\nOpposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who won a seat in Wayanad in the recent general election, but resigned as he was also elected from his family bastion in the north, said he had spoken to the state chief minister to ensure coordination with all agencies.
\n\u201cThe devastation unfolding in Wayanad is heartbreaking,\u201d he said in a message on X. \u201cI have urged the union government to extend all possible support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KOCHI Landslides swept through tea estates and villages in southern India\u2019s Kerala on Tuesday, killing at least 107 people, local media reported, after heavy rain collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders. The hillsides gave way after midnight following torrential rainfall on Monday in the Wayanad district of Kerala, a state …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":68109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68111,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096\/revisions\/68111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}