The death toll from Tuesday’s catastrophic landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district has tragically risen to 63, with 116 people reported injured, according to the Kerala Revenue Minister’s office. A series of massive landslides struck the hilly areas of Meppadi, Wayanad district, in the early hours of July 30. Rescue efforts have been complicated by the difficulty in identifying whether these fragments belong to a single individual or multiple victims. Authorities have yet to confirm, but hundreds of people are feared to be trapped in the aftermath of the devastating landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district.
Landslides triggered by heavy rainfall, which occurred early on Tuesday, has left a trail of destruction in its wake, with several houses destroyed, water bodies swollen and trees uprooted. Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, and Noolpuzha villages were among the areas affected and cut off by the landslides, authorities said.
An Indian Navy team from the Ezhimala Naval Base in Kannur is being deployed to Kerala’s Chooralmala district to aid in rescue operations following Tuesday morning’s landslides triggered by torrential rains. Rescue teams, including the Indian Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and state police and fire units, are working tirelessly to evacuate those stranded and provide aid in the affected areas. The Kerala Chief Minister’s office has announced the establishment of a control room to coordinate immediate relief and rescue efforts following the landslide in Chooralmala, Wayanad.
“Extreme rains are projected to intensify across India and over the Western Ghats from Kerala to Maharashtra,” Bloomberg quoted Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. “Roughly half of Kerala are hills and mountainous regions where the slope is more than 20 degrees and hence these places are prone to landslides when heavy rains occur.”
On Tuesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah spoke with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to assess the situation in Wayanad and assured him of full support from the central government to manage the crisis. Former MP of Wayanad, Congress leader Rahul, Gandhi told the Lok Sabha that over 70 people have perished in the landslides.
During the monsoon season starting in June, Kerala frequently experiences heavy rains that can cause severe flooding and significant loss of life. In 2018, Kerala was ravaged by catastrophic floods that claimed over 400 lives, destroyed homes, forests, and infrastructure, with damages estimated in the billions of dollars.
