Landslide in Indian village kills 5; 150 feared trapped

A major landslide struck a village in western India on Wednesday following heavy monsoon rains, killing at least five people and leaving up to 150 feared trapped, officials said.

Emergency forces rushed to remote Malin village in the Maharashtra state, where debris from a hill collapsed onto homes in the morning while residents were sleeping.

"Five bodies have been recovered and 125 to 150 are still trapped," said Satish Lalit, a spokesman for the Maharashtra chief minister's office.

Alok Avasthy, regional commandant at the National Disaster Response Force, also said up to 150 were feared trapped by the landslide, which damaged about 50 houses.

He said it was difficult to confirm casualties as the village has been cut off from communications. Rain was also hampering rescue operations.

Indian television station CNN-IBN said as well as five people killed in the landslide, another five have been rescued.

Television footage showed the side of a hill shaved off, with large amounts of mud, muddy water and logs piled below.

Heavy machinery has been mobilized to try to rescue those feared trapped, while about 30 ambulances rushed to the scene, local government official Saurav Rao told the Press Trust of India news agency.

"Exact number of casualties is not known as we are moving slowly to ensure that those trapped are removed safely," Rao said.

Heavy rains have been falling for days in Maharashtra as a result of the annual monsoon.

Nearly 6,000 pilgrims, tourists and others are believed to have died when flash floods and landslides struck northern India last June.

British daily The Guardian last year gathered statistics showing that 2,651 people were killed across India in 2012 from the collapse of 2,737 structures, including houses and bridges.

(China Daily 07/31/2014 page12)