Death toll in landslide at Maharashtra village on the rise

Search and rescue teams on Saturday recovered two more bodies from the debris at the landslide-affected Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district, taking the death toll in the tragedy to 24, an official said.

Both the deceased were women, he said.

"Bodies of two women were recovered from the landslide site in Irshalwadi on Saturday morning," an official of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said.

With this, the death toll in the landslide tragedy has gone up to 24, he said, adding that the search and rescue work is still underway as 84 persons are yet to be traced.

One of these two deceased women are identified as 32-year-old Mahi Madhu Tirkat, he added.

Teams of the NDRF and other government agencies resumed their search and rescue operation at the landslide site, located in a hilly terrain, in the morning. This is the third day of the search operation.

The massive landslide hit Irshalwadi, a tribal village located on a hill slope in the coastal district, around 80km from Mumbai, on Wednesday night. At least 17 of 48 houses in the village were fully or partially buried under the landslide debris.

As the village, overlooked by Irshalgad fort, a popular trekking destination, does not have a pucca road, earth movers and excavators could not be easily moved and the rescue operation is being carried out manually, officials said.