Wayanad landslides: Unidentified victims to be laid to rest at Puthumala

Wayanad: The search for the people who went missing in the multiple landslides in Wayanad resumed on Monday. Over 1,500 people, including the fire force personnel and volunteers, joined the search operations in Mundakkai. Army, Navy, forest, K-9 Dog Squad, NDRF and police officials will continue the search in the six zones as in the previous days. Search in the Chaliyar River that flows through Wayanad, Malappuram and Kozhikode districts also resumed.

At least 180 people are yet to be traced from landslide-hit Mundakkai and Chooralmala, said Revenue Minister K Rajan on Monday. 

At least 31 unidentified victims and 158 body parts will be buried at Puthumala. Earlier on Sunday, eight unclaimed bodies were buried here, the same place where five people went missing in a 2019 landslide, after an all-faith prayer meeting.

Schools were reopened in the district after a week-long holiday due to the bad weather conditions. Schools that operate relief camps will remain shut for classes on Monday.

Meanwhile, the district authority has imposed restrictions on entering the disaster-hit sites of Wayanad amid complaints of theft in abandoned houses. In addition, only 1,500 people will be allowed to cross the Bailey bridge, connecting Chooralmala and Mundakkai from 6 am to 9 am. The Army began using an advanced drone for the search on Sunday and marked some spots where human bodies were suspected to be trapped under the debris. A search is underway at these spots.

Manorama News reported that the death toll in the disaster mounted to 385 after 28 more bodies were recovered from Chaliyar River on Sunday. At the same time, official records showed that 221 bodies and 166 body parts have been recovered to date. So far, 75 bodies and 142 body parts were found in the Chaliyar River, officials said. A total of 4,833 people are affected by the landslides in Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Attamala.

On Sunday, more personnel and equipment were deployed in areas where the likelihood of finding bodies is high, and a drone-based Intelligent Buried Object Detection System was used to identify locations where bodies might be buried deep under huge boulders or logs. Stepping up the rescue operations, hundreds of personnel from various forces, including the NDRF, K-9 Dog Squad, Army, Special Operations Group, Madras Engineering Group, Police, Fire Force, Forest Department, Navy, and Coast Guard were deployed in the disaster-struck areas.