Pune: Nearly 200 people are feared to have been trapped when a massive secton of a hillock came crashing down on a village of around 40 homes near Pune early Wednesday.
The villagers, police, disaster authorities and the army were engaged in a combined relief and rescue operation.
Police official Vinod Pawar told media persons that the accident occurred in Malin village in Ambegaon tehsil of Pune, around 5am, as heavy downpour loosened earth and dislodged rocks and boulders. Heavy rain has continued to lash the region over the past four days.
Prabhakar Deshmukh, the local commissioner of Pune district in Maharashtra state, says Wednesday's landslide in the village of Ambegaon has buried about 40 houses.
Deshmukh told CNN-IBN that federal rescue workers are on their way to the area but have been hindered by poor roads leading to the village and continuing rain. He says residents have begun the work of clearing the debris.
The villagers sleeping in their homes were caught unawares and many are feared trapped under the mud, boulders and debris, and the army has been requested to help, said Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) legislator Dilip Walse-Patil.
Till noon, two persons were rescued alive from the debris as a downpour hampered rescue operations.
According to S.S. Guleria, deputy inspector general of operations at the National Disaster Response Force, as many as seven teams of 42 rescue workers each were on their way to the site near the western city of Pune.
According to District Collector Saurav Rao, the administration has mobilised rescue machinery to pull out those trapped.
“Exact number of causalities is not known as we are moving slowly to ensure that those trapped are removed safely. About 30 ambulances have been rushed from adjoining areas to extend medical help to the victims,” he said, adding earth moving equipment from government and private parties were being pressed into service.
Communication difficulties and rains were affecting the operations, he said.
