India landslides death toll passes 150 as rescuers search through mud, debris for many missing
At least 151 people died and 187 were still missing, the state chief minister’s spokesman, P.M. Manoj, told Reuters by phone.
Television visuals showed many houses destroyed and trees uprooted, as rescuers were pulled by ropes across muddy streams of water.
The government was considering making a portable, prefabricated Bailey bridge to connect the affected area, after the main bridge to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed, K. Rajan, the state revenue minister told Asianet TV.
After a day of extremely heavy rainfall that hampered rescue operations, the weather department expects some respite on Wednesday, although the area is likely to receive rain through the day.
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.
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.
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.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse