108 killed in India landslides

WAYANAD, INDIA:

Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains struck tea plantations and killed at least 108 people Tuesday, with at least 250 others rescued from mud and debris.

The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, with blocked roads into the disaster area in Wayanad district complicating relief efforts.

"This catastrophe has resulted in the loss of 108 lives," the state's chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in a statement. "This is one of the worst natural calamities Kerala has ever witnessed."

Another 128 people had been hospitalised for treatment after their rescue, he said.

"My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones and prayers with those injured," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on social media platform X.

Wayanad is famed for the tea estates that crisscross its hilly countryside and which rely on a large pool of casual labourers for planting and harvest.

Several estates in the district were hit by two successive landslides before dawn when most of their inhabitants were asleep.

Images published by the National Disaster Response Force showed rescue crews trudging through mud to search for survivors and carrying bodies on stretchers out of the area.

Homes were caked with brown sludge as the force of the landslide scattered cars, corrugated iron and other debris around the disaster site.

India's army said it had deployed more than 200 soldiers to the area to assist state security forces and fire crews in search-and-rescue efforts.

Modi's office said families of the dead would receive a compensation payment of $2,400 (200,000 rupees).

Vijayan said that more than 3,000 people were sheltering in emergency relief camps around Wayanad district.

More rainfall and strong winds lashed Kerala on Tuesday, and Vijayan urged the public to "be prepared and heed warnings" of more potential disasters ahead