The death toll in the devastating landslide in Manipur’s Noney district continued to climb with more bodies recovered on July 2.
Amid intensified rescue operation, another massive landslide was also reported at a place not so far away from the earlier site on July 2. There were no reports of casualty in the latest landslide.
Regarding the death toll, the number rose to 30 with nine more bodies recovered on July 2.
However, an official report has put the death toll at 29 with eight more bodies recovered till 3 pm.
Another body was recovered before halting the search operation at 5 pm, a source from the spot said.
The devastating landslide hit the 107 Territorial Army (TA) camp located at Tupul railway construction camp at Makhuam area of Noney district in the wee hours of June 30.
Officially as many as 81 people, mostly personnel of the TA were affected by the landslide that destroyed the TA camp stationed there, according to an official statement.
The situation in the landslide affected area of Tupul is still serious. Due to rainfall in the morning, we are expecting the bad weather to persist.
So far, 18 injured person and 25 deceased have been recovered. 38 persons are still missing.@PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/58y06Ui2Ac
— N.Biren Singh (@NBirenSingh) July 2, 2022
The 81 missing people included 43 TA personnel, 23 staff and workers of Venkata Sai Construction (VSC), three each of railway and BIPL, five villagers and four unidentified persons.
After the tragic incident, a joint task force comprising army, Assam Rifles, NDRF, SDRF, CRPF, army medical doctors, Manipur police and fire service personnel launched the rescue operations.
A total manpower strength of 477 including MMTA and local volunteers and 32 excavators were used in the rescue operation. Sophisticated machinery including through-wall imaging radars are also deployed to trace the missing people.
Two trained dogs are also assisting the rescuers in searching for bodies.
On the first day of the operation, eight dead bodies including seven TA personnel were recovered and 18 people including personnel of the TA were rescued.
On the second day of the operation, 13 more bodies were recovered and nine bodies recovered on July 2, the third day of the operation.
Of the nine bodies recovered on July 2, six of them were personnel of the TA and the remaining three were civilians engaged in the railway substation construction, the source said.
Out of the 30 bodies so far recovered in the past three days, 20 were TA personnel, six VSC staff and one BIPL staff while three of them were yet to be identified.
“The situation in the landslide affected area is still serious. Due to rainfall in the morning, we are expecting the bad weather to persist,” Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh said in a Facebook post.
“We are putting in our best effort to expedite the rescue operation,” Biren Singh added in the post.
Meanwhile, Assam’s water resource minister Pijush Hazarika who arrived in the state along with Manipur health minister Sapam Ranjan and CAF&PD minister L Sushildro paid a visit to the affected site and took stock of the ongoing rescue operation.
As per directions of HCM @himantabiswa sir, today I visited the territorial army camp in Tupul, Manipur which was devastated by a massive landslide.
I took stock of the ongoing rescue ops for the recovery of territorial army jawans & civilians who are still missing. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/7UVCDwcI6N— Pijush Hazarika (@Pijush_hazarika) July 2, 2022
