GUWAHATI: Seven Territorial Army personnel were among eight people killed in a massive landslide in Manipur’s Noney district early Thursday and at least another 50, including 23 soldiers, were feared trapped or buried in the rubble of an under-construction railway yard and an adjoining security camp engulfed in the avalanche of rock and mud.
Till late in the evening, 13 injured soldiers and five civilian workers from Assam’s Morigaon district had been rescued by a 400-strong contingent digging through the debris for signs of life. Officials said it could take days for rescuers to get to the bottom of what used to be a sprawl of labour quarters, Army barracks, makeshift offices and semi-complete railway infrastructure.
The seven soldiers killed in the calamity were all from the Territorial Army's 107 Infantry Battalion, deployed at the site to safeguard equipment, workers and the rail line being laid from Jiribam to Imphal.
The 27 civilians officially reported missing include three railway officials, 17 construction workers, a cook and a couple and their 18-month-old daughter living in the vicinity of Tupul railway station, around 50km from the capital city of Imphal.
Witnesses said the landslide came without warning when most of the victims and those missing were asleep. "A few of the survivors recalled being swept down by the gush of hill debris towards the Ijei river, which is why they escaped being buried under piles of rubble," Daichuipao, president of the Rongmei Naga Students' Organisation Manipur, told TOI over the phone.
He said it had been raining for several days, but not on the night when the landslide hit.
Dimgonglung Rongmei, executive director of the Rongmei Naga Baptist Association, said the area hadn't seen a landslide of this scale before.
Northeast Frontier Railway said heavy rain over the past few days had loosened the soil on the hillock adjacent to the Tupul rail yard.
Kohima-based defence PRO Lt Col Sumit K Sharma said, "Search operations will continue through the night and engineering equipment, including bulldozers, have been pressed into service to create access to the site."
Manipur CM Biren Singh, Lt Gen R P Kalita, GOC-in-C of the Army's Eastern Command, and Lt Gen R C Tiwari, GOC of the Spear Corps, were among those who visited the area to take stock of the rescue effort.
The civil administration cautioned civilians living downstream to evacuate due to the likelihood of a breach in the dam created by the landslide. The flow of the Ijei river had been blocked by debris from the landslide, creating a dam-like storage that was opened by the railways at the state government's request.
