Rain hinders rescue efforts as death toll rises in India

CHOORALMALA, India — Soldiers and rescuers worked through slush and rocks under steady rain, looking for survivors and searching for bodies in the hills of India's Kerala state on Wednesday, a day after more than 167 people were killed in monsoon landslides.

Nearly 1,600 people had been rescued from the hillside villages and tea and cardamom estates in Wayanad district, and 225 were still missing, authorities said on Wednesday. They said at least 167 people died and 195 were injured, while the local Asianet news TV channel put the death toll at 230.

Chinese Ambassador to India Xu Feihong said his thoughts are with the bereaved families.

"Deeply saddened to hear about the tragic landslides in #Wayanad, #Kerala. Our thoughts and hearts are with the people there and bereaved families," he wrote on X.

Heavy rain in Kerala, one of India's most attractive tourist destinations, led to the landslides early on Tuesday, sending torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders downhill and burying or sweeping people away to their deaths as they slept.

Experts said the area had been receiving heavy rain in the past two weeks that had softened the soil and that extremely heavy rainfall on Monday triggered the landslides.

The Indian Army said it rescued 1,600 people and has begun the process of constructing an alternative bridge after the main bridge linking the worst affected area of Mundakkai to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed.

Near the site where the bridge was washed away, a land excavator was slowly removing trees and boulders from a mound of debris.

"We are quite sure there are multiple bodies here," said Hamsa T. A., a fire and rescue worker, pointing to the debris. "There were many houses here, people living inside have been missing."

Aparajit Chakraborty in New Delhi contributed to this story.

Agencies via Xinhua