Over 50 Killed in Landslides in India's Kerala

This handout photograph taken on July 30, 2024 and released by India's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) shows NDRF personnel at the disaster site as they rescue victims of the landslide in Wayanad. (Photo by National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) / AFP)

Landslides swept through tea estates in southern India's Kerala state on Tuesday, killing over 50 people, authorities said, as hillsides collapsed after heavy rain and sent rivers of mud, water and boulders on homes of workers and villagers.
The hillsides gave way after midnight following torrential rainfall on Monday in the Wayanad district of Kerala, a state renowned as one of India's most popular tourist destinations. Most of the victims were estate workers and their families who were asleep at the time in makeshift tents, Reuters reported.
Television visuals showed relief personnel working amid uprooted trees and flattened tin structures as boulders lay strewn at the site with muddy water gushing through.
One man was stuck in chest-high mud for hours, television showed, struggling to free himself until rescue workers finally reached him.
"More than 50 dead bodies have been found but it is difficult to establish a proper count as many body parts have been spotted in the river," the state chief minister's spokesman, P.M. Manoj, told Reuters by phone.
Nearly 350 families lived in the affected region, mostly tea and cardamom estates, and 250 people had been rescued so far, state officials said. Many others are missing.
Army engineers were roped in to help build an alternate bridge after the one that linked the affected area to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed, the chief minister's office said in a statement.
The weather office said there was extremely heavy rainfall over north and central Kerala so far on Tuesday, with more rain predicted through the day.