Manipur landslide toll reaches 50; 11 missing

“We’ve recovered one more body today,” said a senior state government official, who is monitoring the situation from Noney district headquarters.

The death toll of the June 30 landslide at a railway construction site in Manipur’s Noney district rose to 50 on Saturday, the tenth day of rescue operations, after one more body was recovered from the debris, officials said. 11 persons are still missing, they added.

The death toll of the June 30 landslide at a railway construction site in Manipur’s Noney district rose to 50 on Saturday, the tenth day of rescue operations, after one more body was recovered from the debris, officials said. 11 persons are still missing, they added. (PTI)

The landslide also hit 107 Territorial Army (TA) camps of the Indian army deployed in the area for the protection of the railway construction work.

“We’ve recovered one more body today,” said a senior state government official, who is monitoring the situation from Noney district headquarters. The deceased has been identified as an official of the Railways.

“With the day’s recovery, 50 bodies are recovered, 18 people are injured, and 11 are still untraceable. The search will continue”, he added.

“Body identification has become increasingly difficult due to tissue deterioration,” read an official note highlighting the updated figure of the search on its ninth day.

“Finding missing bodies is also increasingly difficult as our ability to trace those decreases with depth,” it added.

As the landslide area covers about a 1km stretch, the search operation may take a few more days.

Among the 18 injured persons rescued from ground zero on the first day of the search, seven are presently undergoing treatment at the Assam Rifles multispeciality hospital at Mantripukhri on the outskirts of Imphal, officials said.

In another development, many paddy fields at Liyai and Tungjoy villages in Manipur’s Senapati district have been destroyed by the excess water and subsequent landslides following intense rainfall on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, locals said on Saturday.

“The mudslide/landslide hit paddy fields (at Shothro, Leithro and Azhei areas) of our village, where we generally produce a minimum of 30,000 kilograms of paddy during the harvest time,” said DK Isaac Caasi, chairman of Liyai Khullen village, the birthplace of Manipur’s biggest river Barak. No deaths were reported from the incident.

On Friday, two women were killed while around seven others sustained injuries after a pick-up truck was hit by a landslide near Saihum village, along Churachandpur-Tipaimukh road under the Henglep subdivision in Manipur’s Churachandpur district, which borders Myanmar and Mizoram.