Recovery operations at Joumoul called off
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, August 03 2015:
The search operations for the missing villagers of the Joumoul hamlet by a combined team of Assam Rifles and National Disaster Response Force personnel were called off at 2:30 PM on Monday, highly placed sources said.
Four bodies had been extricated from the debris of landslide which destroyed some houses of the village.
The bodies of other missing villagers still remain unaccounted for.
The additional NDRF members could not take off from the Imphal airport on Monday.
The combined team at ground zero tried to search for the missing bodies or locate survivors, if any.
Since the landscape has completely changed it was not possible.
The search party members have returned to a camp and they are likely to leave on Tuesday morning.
While the Assam Rifles personnel were doing the rescue works in the village on August 2 there was an inordinate delay in the take off of the helicopter ferrying the additional NDRF members from Imphal due to inclement weather.
Later three survivors including the village chief were rescued.
There are 74 persons in this village and according to him most of the villagers were at Sugnu when the catastrophe took place.
There were just 18 persons in the village when the tragedy struck.
So far four dead bodies have been found, The earlier report of 20 persons being buried alive in the landslide was based on the statement of the lone survivor.