Wayanad landslide: Maya, Murphy and Maggie help rescue team find victims

At least 215 bodies, including that of 87 women and 30 children, have been recovered in the last four days after massive landslides hit Wayanad.

In an attempt to locate people still believed to be trapped beneath the debris in landslide-ravaged villages, deep search radars will be deployed in the affected areas, a Defence PRO said.

Around 2,000 people from various forces have been deployed in Wayanad and among them are Maya, Murphy, and Maggie, three members of Kerala's dog squad who have been helping the rescue team recover bodies that have been buried in the soil.

Maya and Murphy are reportedly Human Remains Detection (HRD) dogs who have been trained to detect the smell of a decomposing body. On the other hand, Maggie specialises in finding living humans trapped underground, as per a report in The News Minute.

“Maya has been locating the exact areas. We arrived here on July 30 and started our operation the next day, when the dogs identified two bodies; on August 1, we found 15 bodies while on August 2 we found six bodies; among these, one was not a full body, we retrieved just a thigh,” the publication quoted Maya's trainer Prabath as saying.

Within the first two days itself, Maya and Murphy were able to identify the location of 23 bodies.

This is not the first time Maya and Murphy are participating in a major operation since they have been with the Kerala police for the past four years. Maya was even a part of the August 2020 Pettimudi landslide search operation in Idukki.

“Maya is trained to identify bodies at a depth of two feet. But in Pettimudi, she identified human bodies buried even 10 feet underground. So, we can expect similar efficiency here,” her trainer said.

Along with these three dogs, canines from the Indian Army are also present at the site to detect substances and blood.

“The soil and fallen trees have accumulated in the areas where the river flows. We found seven bodies within that debris yesterday. There is a possibility of finding more bodies here. We don’t know how much more time we need to spend searching,” Prabath told the publication.

Meanwhile, the Kerala government has requested the deployment of advanced radar equipment, including one Xaver radar and four Reeco radars, which will be airlifted from Delhi in an Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft, along with their operators.

According to the district administration, around 218 people are missing. However, Kerala ADGP M R Ajith Kumar had on Friday said that approximately 300 people are still missing.

(With PTI inputs)