Pune: A week after a devastating landslide swept away 40 homes in Malin village at Pune's Ambegaon, the death toll has risen to 144 on Tuesday.
Rain and marshy land mass created by mud continued to hamper movement of JCBs and other heavy equipment pressed into service to remove the debris, officials said, adding that more landslides may follow. Experts have told the government that other houses in the neighbourhood should be evacuated.
The health officials are sanitising the area in view of the unhygienic conditions there due to decomposing bodies.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) jawans have also extricated 33 carcasses of animals from the huge mound of debris that buried the village near here on July 30.
District health department has set up a team to spray disinfectants and take necessary measures to prevent possible health problems in the area which was still being lashed by intermittent rains, V Banavate, the district administration official monitoring the situation, said.
Meanwhile, grieving relatives performed last rites of the victims at mass cremation in the village using firewood supplied by the forest department, he said.
The district administration had earlier issued eviction notices to residents in the few remaining houses in the area, after an advisory by Geological Survey of India (GSI) warned of a possibility of more landslides, if rains continued to lash the region for another three or four days.
(With additional information from PTI)
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