Kozhikode/Shirur: All eyes are on Shirur in Karnataka's Ankola as the rescue team located the truck of Kozhikode man Arjun who went missing in a massive landslide on April 16. Manorama News reported that search for Arjun jointly carried out by army personnel, NDRF, Navy and a group of volunteers from Kerala resumed on Thursday morning. A boom excavator machine is used for drilling the part of Gangavalli river where mud is accumulated. At first, mud accumulated on the river will be completely cleared to lift the truck from the river bed. Scuba divers of the Navy will inspect the cabin of the truck to check whether Arjun is inside it.
Advanced drone for search
The team of army led by retired Major General Indrapal will use an advanced drone equipped with GPS to identify the position of the lorry. As the battery of the drone is being taken on a train, we will be able to use it only by 11.30 am, said Indrapal. A team of police is waiting at Karwar railway station to collect the battery.
“ We are setting up a drone control centre today. We got a new navigational pack from a company based in Bengaluru. GPS used in India was developed by the USA. So it is not accurate. Hence, the new navigational pack will help us to examine the place efficiently. Once, the battery of the drone is reached, we will launch it immediately. The drone will be used for assessing the exact position of the truck. It will help the divers to decide on their move,” Indrapal told Manorama News.
Meanwhile, the condition of the river in spate will pose a challenge to the scuba divers in the search. On Wednesday, the divers called off the search in the river due to zero visibility in the bad weather conditions.
The rescue efforts to find Kozhikode native Arjun and two Karnataka men have entered the 10th day on Thursday. Talking to Manorama News, Kozhikode MP M K Raghavan thanked the Karnataka government for their cooperation in finding Arjun. He expressed hope that Arjun would be found and the truck would be lifted from the river.
“I communicated with Arjun's family. It has been 10 days since Arjun went missing. His family is waiting for him,” he said.
Manorama News reported that rescue workers including the army reached the site around 7 am. The Coast Guard will also join the search on Thursday.
Only rescue workers are allowed to the site as the use of mobile phones will hamper the search using a drone. The district authority has imposed strict curbs to continue the search without any interruptions. Media personnel are also not allowed on the site.
Though the India Meteorological Department sounded an orange alert for Shirur on Thursday, the weather is favourable for the rescue operations. It was on Wednesday evening, that Karnataka Police confirmed the presence of a truck on the river bed, at a depth of 15 feet, about 20 metres from the banks.
Horrific landslide
Arjun, a truck driver went missing on July 16. It is assumed that Arjun who was inside the truck got trapped under the land when a hill flowed down to the road during the landside. Though the family filed a man missing complaint with Ankola police, the search was intensified only on July 18.
Eight bodies have been recovered so far since the landslide on July 16. According to Karnataka media, the landside hit the National Highway 66 in Shirur around 8.45 am on July 16. Several houses and shops on the bank of the river were swept away when a hill collapsed in the landslide. It is learnt that a few trucks and a car were washed away into the river during the accident. The government is clueless about the number of people who were buried under the debris.
Initially, excavators and two teams of the National Disaster Response Force were pressed into the rescue operation on Tuesday. Army joined the mission after Arjun's family wrote to the Prime Minister and Kerala Chief Minister seeking an order for the same to expedite the search. The truck of Arjun was located under the riverbed on the 9th day of the search.
