Wayanad mudslip: Toll rises to 6 as 3 more bodies recovered; 2 still missing

Kozhikode: Rescue teams on Thursday recovered the bodies of three persons who went missing in the mudslip at the construction site of the Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi twin-tunnel road project at Kalladi in Wayanad, taking the death toll in the disaster to six.

All the victims were employees of the contractor, Dilip Buildcon Ltd.The bodies were found in different locations near the Meenakshi Bridge on the third day of the search operation. Efforts are on to trace two more missing persons. The first body, recovered around 9am from the debris of a collapsed mosque near the bridge, was identified as that of Rahul Sharma, an engineer hailing from Manali in Himachal Pradesh.About an hour later, rescuers retrieved the body of Mohammad Imran, an excavator operator from Bihar, from beneath the site where the construction company’s temporary office stood on the opposite side of the bridge.

The third body, identified as that of Azharuddin Ansari, a surveyor from Uttar Pradesh, was recovered around 11.45am from beneath mangled steel debris on the banks of the river.The bodies were shifted to Vythiri taluk hospital for postmortem examinations and later taken to Kozhikode Medical College Hospital for embalming. Officials said they would be handed over to the families after the completion of formalities.

The search was intensified around the locations where the bodies were recovered and along the Meenakshi River, but the remaining two missing persons could not be traced. Those still missing are Vikram Rana, a construction manager from Himachal Pradesh, and Rakesh Guchait, a surveyor from West Bengal.With rain staying away for most of the day, rescue teams were able to widen the search operation. A 70-member National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team searched both banks of the Meenakshi River, assisted by 110 personnel from the Fire and Rescue Services and around 100 Kerala police personnel.

Nearly a dozen excavators and earthmovers were deployed to clear debris at multiple locations.Opposition leader Pinarayi Vijayan visited the disaster site during the day and later met survivors at the relief camp and the injured undergoing treatment at the hospital.PWD minister P K Basheer said continuous rainfall made the removal of excavated earth from the mudslip site a major challenge. “Experts have assessed that removing the accumulated earth under the prevailing conditions could trigger further mudslips and pose additional risks...

Only measures that can be carried out safely are being undertaken at present,” the minister said.Basheer said the construction company was warned on several occasions to remove the huge quantity of excavated earth piled up at the site. According to him, the company was specifically directed on July 1 to clear the accumulated soil, but it maintained there was no cause for concern.