Thiruvananthapuram: More than 200 persons are still missing even five days after the landslide at Chooralmala and Mundakkai areas of Wayanad.
While the official death toll by Saturday evening was 219, the unofficial number was around 365. Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the rescue operations were heading towards final stages. He said that 206 persons were missing till Saturday noon. The aim was to rescue the maximum number of lives possible and all efforts were still being made to save any life beneath the debris, he said.
The CM said that since a large number of bodies were recovered from Chaliyar river, a massive search operation was being carried out in the river by 40 teams. Most of the 200 odd bodies and parts of bodies were recovered from the river.
Drones, thermal radar scanner and 11 trained sniffer dogs have also been deployed for the search operation.
Among the bodies recovered so far, the identity of 67 could not be confirmed. The Chief Minister said that mass funerals of the unidentified bodies would be done by performing community prayers.
The Chief Minister said that Institute for Climate Change Studies in Kerala would be asked to conduct studies on the reasons for the back to back calamities in the state.
Meanwhile, counselling services are being offered at the relief camps, especially to support children who survived the calamity.
In view of large number of people from various parts of Kerala and neighbouring states visiting the disaster-hit areas, the state government has decided to restrict volunteers through registration.
DNA samples of unidentified bodies as well as body parts are being preserved so that these can be checked with those of relatives of missing persons.
Meanwhile, two youths, Salim, 36, and Muhsin, 32, who went to search for some missing persons at the Soochipara waterfalls on Friday, got stranded they suffered injuries. They were airlifted by the Indian Army on Saturday.