Landslide claims 10 lives, traps many others in India

IRSHALWADI, India — Rescue workers in India battled difficult terrain and bad weather on Thursday, as they searched for more than 100 people feared trapped in a landslide that killed at least 10 villagers after incessant rain soaked a mountain slope, officials said.

A wave of extreme heat, wildfires, torrential rain and flooding has wreaked havoc around the world in recent days, raising new fears about the pace of climate change.

The land gave way in the middle of the night in the remote hamlet of Irshalwadi in the western Maharashtra state, about 60 kilometers from Mumbai, officials said.

"The debris at some of the places is 10 to 29 feet (3 to 8.84 meters) deep," S B Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told the Indian Express newspaper.

"It is difficult to bring in heavy machinery to this place. It is a 2.8 km trek to reach the spot and we have to remove the debris manually which is likely to take a lot of time."

Flash floods, landslides, and accidents caused by heavy rain have killed more than 100 people in India since the onset of the monsoon season on June 1, mostly in the north which has seen 41 percent more rain than normal, the India Meteorological Department said.

A landslide in a nearby village killed over 80 people two years ago.

Some pockets of the district, dotted with old forts and laced with trekking trails, received as much as 400 millimeters of rain in the last 24 hours, according to the weather department.

More rain was expected on Thursday but not as heavy, an official said, and a red alert had been issued for the coast of Maharashtra and Gujarat state to the north, which has also been battered by rain this week.

Schools closed

Schools had been shut in several states due to incessant rains, local authorities said on Thursday.

The government of the southern Telangana state has decided to declare holidays for two days from Thursday in all of the state's education institutions due to heavy rainfall, tweeted the state's Education Minister Sabitha Reddy.

Similarly, all schools and educational institutions have been shut from Thursday to Saturday in parts of Himachal Pradesh state amid fears of flash floods and landslides due to incessant rains, according to an official order.

This week, the Yamuna River reached the compound walls of the Taj Mahal for the first time in 45 years, submerging several historical monuments and gardens surrounding the 17th-century white marble mausoleum.

Agencies - Xinhua