Saurabh Ojha
MAHARASHTRA’s Pune district’s Malin village death toll climbed to 130. On Sunday another 21 bodies were recovered from the debris. The officials suspects another 130 villagers are still strapped or missing.
According to National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) chief Alok Avasthi the other agencies have rescued 23 people till now. One of them is a three-month old boy Rudra – from under the muck and debris.
On Wednesday, around 200 people were almost entirely buried under a landslide, flattening over 40 houses in the Malin village, located on a hilly terrain, nearly 120 kilometres from Pune.
Only four houses survived the landslide as the inmates ran to safety the moment the debris started falling. A temple and a primary school were among those flattened by the landslide.
Around 30 students had taken shelter from the rain in Malin’s ancient Hanuman temple that got buried under the debris.
A case has been registered against the local agriculture officer for allowing cutting of a slope right above the village.