Raigad landslide claims 27 lives, several people missing

A massive landslide occurred on 19th July at Irshalwadi hamlet in Raigad district, Maharashtra. The incident claimed 22 lives and many villagers are missing. The search and rescue operations are ongoing. The tribal village is situated on a hill slope under Khalapur tehsil which is around 80 km from Mumbai. The deceased included nine men, women and four children. An official said that an entire family died in this tragic incident.

Almost 17 of the 48 houses in the village have got buried in landslide debris. As per the Raigad district disaster management office, the official informed that, of the 229 villagers residing on the hill slope, 27 are dead, 10 are injured, 111 were safe and 86 persons are missing and yet to be traced. The official said that a three-year-old boy and his six-month-old sister are among the nine members of one family who died in the disastrous incident. Three livestock animals also perished in the incident.

A popular trekking place Irshalgad Fort does not have a pucca road. The excavators heading to the village faced a lot of difficulty due to this, which led to a manual rescue operation being carried out. An official from the Konkan divisional headquarters said, about 60 containers were used as transit camps for the survivors and 40 of them have already reached the location. Also, 20 temporary toilets and bathrooms have been prepared at the site.

Divisional Commissioner Mahendra Kalyankar reached the spot along with Raigad collector Yogesh Mhase and a team of senior officials within hours of the tragedy. Since then, Kalyankar is supervising rescue operations at the landslide site. The Konkan division consists of seven districts, including Raigad and Thane. The administration has been taking local residents' aid who know the hilly terrain, as well as social organisations to avoid any hurdles in relief and rescue works.

Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NRDF) with 100 jawans, 80 personnel of the Thane Disaster Response Force (TDRF), 82 adventure park workers, 460 CIDCO workers and more than 900 other people, including villagers and NGO members, are engrossed in the relief and rescue works.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde told the state legislative assembly, in the wake of the landslide incident, the Maharashtra government has decided to shift residents of all landslide-prone areas in the state to safer locations. Irshalwadi hamlet was not on the list of landslide-prone areas, he said.