Landslides swept through tea estates and villages in southern India’s Kerala on Tuesday, killing at least 107 people, local media reported, after heavy rain collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.
The hillsides gave way after midnight following torrential rainfall on Monday in the Wayanad district of Kerala, a state renowned as one of India’s most popular tourist destinations. Most of the victims were tea estate workers and their families who were asleep in makeshift shelters.
Nearly 350 families lived in the affected region, mostly given over to tea and cardamom estates, and 250 people had been rescued so far, state officials said.
Army engineers were deployed to help build a replacement bridge after the one that linked the affected area to the nearest town of Chooralmala was destroyed, the chief minister’s office said in a statement.
Although the area is a well known tourist destination, local residents were the most affected as all tourist excursions had been halted since Monday due to the rain.
Tuesday’s landslides are the worst disaster in the state since 2018 when heavy floods killed almost 400 people.
