Manipur landslide toll rises to 46, 17 still missing

Story by  ATV | Posted by  Nakul Shivani • 1 Years ago
Rescue operations underway at the landslide site
Rescue operations underway at the landslide site

 

Imphal

With the recovery of four more bodies on Monday, the death toll in the massive landslide that struck at a railway construction site in Manipur's Noney district on Thursday has increased to 46

Among the casualties are 30 Territorial Army soldiers.

Search operations are still underway to locate 17 persons still missing at the mishap site.

The latest four bodies included three Territorial Army personnel and another person who was unidentified as the body was mutilated. The 46 dead also include railway workers.

The Territorial Army soldiers were deployed at Tupul to provide security to the railway project in which many workers from Assam have been working.

The constructions of the railway infrastructure in Noney district are part of the Rs 14,320 crore broad gauge Jiribam-Imphal railway project, being executed by the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), to connect the Manipur capital on the rail network by 2024.

Despite fresh landslides and continuous hostile weather conditions, the intensive search operations by the Indian Army, the Assam Rifles, the Territorial Army, and the National and State Disaster Response Forces continued at the incident site.

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Senior Army and disaster management officials are camping at ground zero supervising the rescue and recovery operations.

The district administration again on Monday cautioned civilians living in downstream areas of the Ijei river to evacuate due to the likelihood of a breach in the dam created on the river by the landslide.