Wayanad Landslide: Death Toll Rises to 7; Search On for One Missing Person
As the search operations entered its fourth day on Friday amid rainy conditions in the landslide-hit Kalladi area of Wayanad district, one more body was recovered, taking the death toll to seven. Rescue teams are searching across four designated zones for one more body.
The landslide occurred on July 7 at the site of the Anakkompoyil Meppadi tunnel project, which is intended to connect Wayanad and Kozhikode districts. Till Thursday, six bodies were recovered. Several teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, fire force officials, and police officers are engaged in search operations.
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According to a PTI report, the two persons missing were Rakesh Guchait, a surveyor from West Bengal, and Vikram Rana, a construction manager from Himachal Pradesh. However, it is yet to be identified whose body was recovered from near the river on Friday, the officials told the news agency.
The six previously identified victims are identified as: Azharuddin Ansari (surveyor) who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh native Rahul Sharma who worked as an engineer, Mohammed Imran an excavator operator from Bihar, Chandraban, an operator from Madhya Pradesh, Bikash Kumar, a civil foreman from Bihar and Anmol, a worker from Jharkhand.
The post-mortem procedure was completed at Vythiri Taluk Hospital. A site engineer from Ernakulam was the only Malayali among those hospitalised.
The landslide struck at around 11:15 am at Kalladi near Meppady on Tuesday within a 200-metre radius of the tunnel construction site, thereby burying large portions of the worksite under debris estimated to be 7 to 10 feet deep.
VIDEO | Wayanad landslide: Death toll rises to seven as one more body recovered. Search operations continue.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 10, 2026
A landslide occurred on July 7 at the site of the Anakkompoyil Meppadi tunnel project, which is intended to connect Wayanad and Kozhikode districts.#WayanadLandslide… pic.twitter.com/OkE50eWYbX
The Kerala Government has announced an ex gratia of five lakh rupees to the families of those who lost their lives in the landslide.An internal geological assessment accessed by NDTV reveals that the hillside above the Wayanad tunnel's North Portal (near Kalladi-Meppadi) was already structurally compromised long before a landslide struck.
Several ministers from the Kerala government have described the incident as a "man-made disaster".
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