Over 100 dead in rain-related incidents in Maharashtra

More than 100 people have died in a chain of landslides and other monsoon-related incidents in the mega-floods-ravaged coastal Konkan belt and mountainous terrain of Western Maharashtra.

The worst of the landslides was reported from the Taliye village near Mahad town in Raigad district, where over 50 dead bodies have been recovered while over 40 to 50 others are still feared trapped in the heap of debris.

An estimated 50-60 metre tall portion of a hillock broke loose on Thursday night - after being pounded by torrential rains - and crashed onto around 30-plus houses below, trapping a majority of the victims under the huge boulders, stones, trees, bushes and slush in the darkness of night.

The government has confirmed over 100 deaths in 48 hours in the series of incidents in flood-battered twin rights of Western Ghats, which incidentally has also has Covid-19 positivity rate higher than state’s average falling in the red-zone, which is yet to be fully unlocked.

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These floods in Konkan and Western Maharashtra are worse than the ones reported in 2005 and 1967 - and happened just after back-to-back cyclones - Nisarga in June 2020, and Tauktae in May 2021.

At least a dozen incidents of landslides have been reported from two geographically vast and diverse regions of the state compounding into one of the biggest disasters in recent times.

More than 1,800 to 2,000 people have been rescued for safety by various agencies involved in the operations including NDRF, armed forces and Maharashtra government.

“The rainfall that has been seen in the last few days is something unprecedented…perhaps the definition of heavy to very heavy rainfall needs to be changed,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said.

In the Konkan districts of Raigad and Ratnagiri, the water levels have receded, however, in Western Maharashtra districts of Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara, there was flooding in multiple locations, because of the overflowing Panchganga, Krishna and Koyna rivers, respectively.

According to tentative estimates, over 2,500 big and small vehicles including trucks, tempos, cars and scooters were stuck and damaged in the floods and were piled up at various locations.

As far as the Taliye incident is concerned, massive rescue and relief operations have been launched and will continue through the night.

“It is a big tragedy. So far 50 deaths have been confirmed…we the agencies are working 24x7 to rescue people,” Raigad MP Sunil Tatkare told DH from Raigad after visiting several sites.

There have been several other landslides and deaths including 15 in two incidents in Poladpur (Raigad), 12 in Mirgaon and 1 in Wai (Satara), 11 in Khed (Ratnagiri), and another half dozen locations in Satara.

Meanwhile, people died in Mumbai in an incident of house collapse.