Wayanad : One more body was recovered from the Wayanad landslide site on Friday, taking the total number of persons killed in the disaster to seven, district officials said.
The two persons missing till now were Rakesh Guchait, a surveyor from West Bengal, and Vikram Rana, a construction manager from Himachal Pradesh, and it is yet to be identified whose body was recovered from near the river, the officials said.
With this, only one more person remains to be found. Several teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, fire force officials, and police officers began search operations early in the morning on the fourth day since the disaster, using heavy earthmovers to clear the mud.
Till Thursday, six bodies were recovered from the site of the landslide. A landslide occurred on July 7 at the site of the Anakkompoyil Meppadi tunnel project, which is intended to connect Wayanad and Kozhikode districts.
The recovered body was later identified by family members as 24-year-old Rakesh Guchait, a native of East Midnapore in West Bengal. According to officials, the body was retrieved downstream from the landslide site in the Meenakshi River.
Following a post-mortem examination at the Vythiri Taluk Hospital, the body is scheduled to be moved to the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital for embalming before being airlifted back to his hometown.
Meanwhile, a political dispute has intensified over the tragedy at the Kalladi tunnel construction site. The opposition has criticized the state government, raising concerns over how environmental clearances were obtained for the massive project in such an ecologically sensitive area.
In response to the growing safety concerns, the government is expected to constitute an expert committee comprising scientists, tunnel experts, and geologists to evaluate the environmental viability and future of the Anakkompoyil-Meppadi tunnel road project
