The toll in Wednesday’s landslide, which buried the entire hinterland village of Malin in Pune district of western Maharashtra, mounted to 42 on Thursday.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel — who continued the rescue and relief operation in the inclement weather — extricated more number of bodies from under the slush and mounds soil that rolled down onto the village from the adjacent hillock on Wednesday morning.Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Malin village and announced an assistance of Rs2 lakh to the next of kin of each of the deceased from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund.
Talking to the media after taking stock of the situation in the landslide-hit village, Singh said: “On behalf of the Centre, I express my condolences to the bereaved families. In addition to the compensation announced by the Maharashtra Government, the Centre will give an assistance Rs2 lakh each to the next of kin of those killed in the landslide. The Prime Minister has also assured all possible assistance to the State Government in dealing with the natural calamity.”
The landslide, which occurred at 6 am on Wednesday, had crushed as many as 66 properties, including 45 households, in Malin village. Malin, which forms a part of the Bhimshankar Hills, has incidentally been identified as one of the eco-sensitive villages in Western Ghat by a High level Working Group (HlWG) headed by Dr K Kasturirangan.
“As of now, the NDRF personnel have extricated 42 bodies from under the debris. Of the 20-odd persons rescued from the mishap site, nine are undergoing treatment at the nearby primary health centre and at the Sasoon Hospital in Pune. The chances of our rescuing more number of persons from the under the debris are getting slimmer by the hour,” Pune’s Additional District Collector Ganesh Patil told The Pioneer late on Thursday.
Though the Pune district administration had on Wednesday evening pegged the number of people feared trapped under the mounds of loose soil at 150, the rescuers were on Thursday reluctant to hazard a guess on the number of people still trapped under the debris.
“At this juncture, we cannot say for sure as to how many people are under debris. But, we will continue our rescue and debris clearance operations till such time that all missing persons from the village are accounted for,” a senior district official said.
Among the people who were rescued from under the debris by the NDRF personnel were Pramila limbe, a housewife in her twenties, and her three-month son Rudra. “The landslide crushed Pramila’s home while she was breast-feeding her son Rudra. Pramila and her son were rescued from under the debris by NDRF officials at 4.30 pm on Thursday. While Pramila sustained an injury in her back, her son suffered a fracture in his neck,” a district official said.
NCP president Sharad Pawar Pawar, who also visited Malin village, said that keeping the recurring natural disasters in mind, it was time that the State Government thought in terms of rehabilitating the people living in villages that are in the foothills and slopes of Sahydri Ghats in western Maharashtra.
“Time has come for us to resettling the people living in the villages that are either precarious close to the slopes or foothills of the Sahaydri Ghats…. At this juncture, our emphasis should be more rescuing the people trapped under the debris rather debating on what caused the landslide,” Pawar said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who briefed his ministerial colleagues about the ongoing rescue and relief operations at Malin, said that the State Government would consider shifting people living in such villages, which were prone to landslides from the nearby hillocks, to alternate locations as a precautionary measure.
Chavan told his Cabinet colleagues that as many as 300 NDRF personnel were engaged in rescue operations. “The operations are hampered by rain and lack of access to village. The NDRF personnel had a difficulty in reaching their equipment to the Malin village,” the Chief Minister said.
Taking cognizance of media reports suggesting that there had large-scale tree felling and excavation activity on hillocks located around Malin village in recent months, the Maharashtra Government is seriously contemplating ordering an inquiry by environmental experts to examine factors that contributed to Wednesday’s landslide.