Death toll in Irshalwadi landslide rises to 22 including nine members of family

NDRF teams resumed their search and rescue operation at the landslide site, located in a hilly terrain, around 6.30 am amid rainfall in the area.

The search and rescue teams on Friday recovered six more bodies from the site of landslide at Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district taking the death toll in the incident to 22 while 86 persons were yet to be traced, officials said.

The deceased included nine men, as many women and four children. Nine members of a family perished in the disaster which struck on Wednesday night.

The National Disaster Response Force and other government agencies suspended the rescue operation around 6 pm due to heavy rains, an NDRF official said.

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Four teams of the NDRF will resume the operation on Saturday morning, he added.

Of the six victims whose bodies were pulled out on Friday, three were men and three women. Four children, aged between six months to four years, were among the deceased.

Nine members of the Pardhi family, including a three-year-old boy and his six-month-old sister, died in the incident.

Three livestock animals also died in the incident while 21 animals were rescued.

As per the Raigad district disaster management office, of 229 village residents, 22 were dead, ten were injured, 111 were safe and 86 persons were yet to be traced.

Some of them, however, had left the village to attend a marriage while some were out for rice plantation work at the time of the incident. The landslide hit the tribal village, located on a hill slope in Khalapur tehsil of the coastal Raigad district, around 80 km from Mumbai, around 10.30 pm on July 19.

At least 17 of 48 houses in the village were fully or partially buried under the debris. NDRF teams resumed search and rescue operations around 6.30 on Friday morning amid rainfall.

Villagers and relatives of the people who are feared to have been trapped under the debris also assisted them, a police official said. As the village, overlooked by Irshalgad fort, a popular trekking destination, does not have a pucca road, earth movers and excavators could not be easily moved and the rescue operations were being carried out manually, officials said.

Khalapur and Karjat tehsils of Raigad district received heavy rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday. Landslides were also reported at Daaur Nagar in Uran, Shilat and Ovele in Panvel tehsil of the district in the last three days, but there were no casualties.

On July 22, 2021, a massive landslide at Taliye village in Mahad tehsil of Raigad district had claimed 87 lives. The district recorded 76 mm of average rainfall in the 24 hours till 10 am on Friday morning, Raigad collector's office said.