Landslides in Southern India have killed more than 150 people in just two days. Torrential rains in the state of Kerala sparked the landslides, sweeping mud and rocks rapidly downhill in the mountainous region and hitting homes while occupants slept. Videos on Indian television showed houses, cars, and roads swept away in an instant while rescue workers frantically tried to save as many people as possible.
The region has endured heavy rains, which continued amid rescue efforts, hampering attempts to find more than 200 people who remain unaccounted for. Witnesses described at least three landslides that started at around midnight and swept homes away with their owners inside. A bridge connecting two towns reportedly disappeared in minutes. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has ordered K9 units and drones to help with the rescue efforts, while India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a financial assistance scheme for the relatives of those who died and the people who were injured.
The incident is the deadliest natural disaster in Kerala since landslides killed over 400 in 2018. However, India is used to such incidents, which have cost thousands of lives over recent decades.
Among the deadliest tragedies occurred in Guwahati in 1948 and took the lives of more than 500 people. The landslide buried an entire village. Twenty years later, in Darjeeling, continuous rainfall caused hundreds of landslides with varying degrees of destructive power. The number killed is unknown but is believed to have run into the thousands. Additionally, an entire 50-mile-long road was completely wiped away.
Over 300 died in 1998 when the village of Malpa in Uttarakhand disappeared under a deluge of mud and rocks, including an avalanche measuring five meters high. Most of the victims died in their sleep.
There were separate landslides in 2000 and 2001, collectively killing more than 200, and another in 2023, which was one of the deadliest in history. More than 5,700 people were killed last year when floods and landslides wiped out over 4,000 small villages in the Kedarnath region of Uttarakhand. Since then, there have been eight recorded fatal landslides across the country.
