AT LEAST 16 people were killed and over 100 feared trapped under the debris of a massive landslide in Irshalwadi, a hilly tribal village in Khalapur tehsil of Maharashtra's Raigad district, on Wednesday night. The district has received heavy rainfall for the last 48 hours. Briefing the Assembly on the incident, Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the incident occurred at about 11 pm on Wednesday. “A total of 228 people reside in the village, of which 70 were unaffected. Twenty-one people were rescued safely, of which six injured have been admitted to the MGM hospital,” Fadnavis told the Assembly on Thursday. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who reached the spot early Thursday morning and oversaw rescue and relief operations throughout the day, announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the victims. Shinde said the village was not on the list of landslide-prone areas. The village is located near the Irshalgad fort, which is a popular trekking destination during the weekends. Most of the villagers belong to the Thakur Adivasi tribe and are reported to have been living in the area for generations. Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), comprising 20-30 personnel, arrived in the area in the early hours of Thursday to carry out rescue operations. The search operation was called off at about 5 pm, and is set to commence early Friday morning. “We received a call about the incident at 1.45 am and left within half-an-hour. We reached the foothills around 4 am, and trekked up the hill to carry out rescue operations,” said Deepak Tiwari, a senior NDRF official. Rescue operations were hampered due to heavy rainfall. The narrow roads leading up to the hill, muddy from the rainfall, made movement of heavy machinery difficult. So, the NDRF teams had to dig through the debris manually. “Of the total 40 houses in the village, 17 have been affected. We have deployed four teams to conduct rescue operations. The debris at some places is 10-29 feet deep. It is difficult to bring heavy machinery to this place. It is a 2.8 km trek to reach the spot and we have to remove the debris manually, which is likely to take a lot of time. We will continue our operations till we retrieve the last person,” said S B Singh, Commandant of the 5th battalion of the NDRF. Besides a team of the Thane Disaster Relief Force comprising 15 personnel, several trekkers and companies have also joined rescue operations. “As more manpower was required, 1,000 workers along with machinery were sent through CIDCO. They have reached and are working under the supervision of NDRF. Three Bobcat machines have been arranged by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board,” Fadnavis told the Assembly. “Since there is no road connectivity, vehicles and machinery cannot reach the spot, and one has to walk for over one-and-a-half hours to reach there. Due to incessant rainfall and bad weather, there are difficulties in the rescue operation, but the teams are finding ways to overcome it,” he said. Several ministers as well as Opposition leaders also reached the area on Thursday.
