At least 108 people have been killed and 128 others injured after landslides hit the southern Indian state of Kerala, the state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
“The catastrophe has resulted in the loss of 108 lives, with 128 individuals injured and receiving treatment in various hospitals,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Landslides triggered by relentless monsoon rains struck tea plantations in the district of Wayanad at about 2am on Tuesday (20:30 GMT on Monday), as heavy rain collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.
The landslides cut off at least four villages in the district, with rescue efforts hampered by continued rains and blocked roads. Most of the victims were tea estate workers and their families who were asleep in makeshift shelters.
Wayanad is famed for the tea estates crisscrossing its hilly countryside, which rely on a large pool of casual labourers for planting and harvest.
Television 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.
One man was stuck in chest-high mud for hours, TV pictures showed, unable to free himself until he was finally reached by emergency workers. At least 100 families were stranded after the landslides, local Asianet TV reported.
Nearly 350 families live in the affected region, mostly given over to tea and cardamom estates, and 250 people had been rescued so far, state officials said.
Indian Army 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’s office said in a statement.
“A 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,” Kerala Chief Secretary V Venu told reporters, adding that many people were still missing.
The weather office said there had been extremely heavy rainfall over north and central Kerala on Tuesday, with more rain predicted through the day.
“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones and prayers with those injured,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on social media platform X, adding that families of victims would be given a compensation payment of $2,400 (200,000 rupees).
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who until recently represented Wayanad in parliament, told lawmakers that the scope of the devastation was “heartbreaking”.
“Our country has witnessed an alarming rise in landslides in recent years,” he said. “The need of the hour is a comprehensive action plan to address the growing frequency of natural calamities.”
India’s meteorological agency is predicting more rain in the coming hours.
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.
Intense monsoon storms battered India earlier 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 rockfall triggered by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 220 people and completely buried the tiny village of Malpa in the Himalayas.
