Wayanad Landslide Death Toll Mounts To 6 As More Bodies Are Recovered Today

Wayanad: Three more bodies were recovered on Thursday morning, bringing the death toll in the Wayanad landslide to six. Two people remain missing.

The three bodies recovered have been identified as those of migrant workers -- Azharuddin Ansari (surveyor) who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh native Rahul Sharma who worked as an engineer and Mohammed Imran, an excavator operator from Bihar -- the officials said.

Earlier, Kerala Ministers A P Anil Kumar and T Siddique told reporters that one of the bodies was recovered from zone 1 of the search area in the morning and the other from inside the river.

"Searches will be carried out in zones 1 and 2 of the area. Will be focusing search operations near the river also," Kumar said.

Siddique said that postmortem of the bodies will be carried out at the Vythiri Taluk hospital, and they will be embalmed at the Kozhikode government medical college hospital. The bodies recovered on Thursday are identified as Muhammad Imran Ansari, a native of Bihar who was the excavator operator and Rahul, a native of Himachal Pradesh who worked as an engineer for the construction company.

“The strong current and turbulent water had hampered the search on Wednesday, but the body was found when the water cleared and the levels went down, Siddique said. He also said that a 20-member NDRF team is conducting a special inspection to check if there are still people trapped in the river.

A landslide had occurred on July 7 at the site of the Anakkompoyil-Meppadi tunnel project for connecting Wayanad and Kozhikode districts. Now three people remain missing. Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Wednesday had said that search operations would be given priority.

He had also said that of the 10 persons injured in the incident, three were discharged, four were still hospitalised but stable, and three others were in the ICU, of whom two were critical.