7 soldiers among 8 killed in Manipur landslide; 50 missing

GUWAHATI: At least 50 persons, including 23 Army personnel are feared buried and eight confirmed dead, after a massive landslide hit Manipur’s Noney district early on Thursday, sweeping away a Territorial Army (TA) camp and an under-construction railway yard site.
After hours of digging, mortal remains of seven soldiers, belonging to the 107 TA Infantry battalion and a civilian were pulled out from heaps of rock and rubble, even as rescuers said it could take them days to clear the debris.
By dusk on Thursday, over 400 rescuers, comprising Indian Army troops, Assam Rifles and Territorial Army, NDRF, SDRF, Manipur Police and fire fighters were pressed into service. They managed to rescue 13 soldiers and five civilians, all workers from Assam’s Morigaon district.
Among the missing are 23 TA personnel and 27 civilians, including 17 labourers.
The TA unit was deployed near Tupul railway station, located about 50 km west of Imphal, for protection of the under-construction railway line being laid from Jiribam to Imphal.
Witnesses said from ground zero that the landslide took everyone by surprise as most of them were sleeping.
“Few survivors said that were swept down by the landslide to Ijei river below and that is how they escaped from being buried to death,” Daichuipao, the president of Rongmei Naga Students'Organization Manipur (RNSOM) told TOI by telephone.
He added that it was raining in the area for several days but not on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, when the landslide hit the area.
Dimgonglung Rongmei, executive director of Rongmei Naga Baptist Association, a group which is engaged in social welfare activities in the area said, landslide of this scale is unheard.
“It is unfortunate that so many people were living together (being a camp area) where the landslide happened. I am aware that before the railway line construction, a small slide took place and the mountain moved little but it remained like that for some years at the same location,” said Rongmei.