Hopes of finding survivors fade in India's Kerala after landslides kill 167

By Munsif Vengattil, Chris Thomas and Jose Devasia

CHOORALMALA, India (Reuters) -Hopes of finding survivors began to fade as hundreds of rescuers worked through slush and rocks and pulled out bodies from debris in the hills of India's Kerala state on Wednesday, a day after 167 people were killed in monsoon landslides.

Steady rain that intensified as the day progressed and the rising water level in a local river hampered the rescue, with a temporary bridge built to connect the worst affected area of Mundakkai being washed away.

The weather department has forecast more heavy rain over the next 24 hours, Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said and urged people to be on "high alert".

Heavy rain in Kerala, one of India's most popular tourist destinations, led to the landslides in its Wayanad district early on Tuesday, sending torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders downhill and burying or sweeping people to their deaths as they slept.

It was the worst disaster in the state since deadly floods in 2018. Experts said the area had received heavy rain in the last two weeks that softened the soil. Extremely heavy rainfall on Monday then triggered the landslides.

Nearly 1,600 people have been rescued from the hillside villages and tea and cardamom estates, authorities said on Wednesday.

They said at least 167 people died, while the local Asianet news TV channel put the death toll at 230. More than 8,000 people were being sheltered in camps across the district, authorities said.

Wayanad's district administrator said people had been asked on Wednesday to shift to camps "as soon as possible as there is a danger".

Rescuers had found 24 bodies and six body parts on Wednesday and were not hopeful of finding any survivors more than 36 hours after the tragedy, one official in Chooralmala town said.

The landslides were mostly on the upper slopes of hills which then cascaded to the valley below, M R Ajith Kumar, a top state police officer, told Reuters. 

WARMING ARABIAN SEA

Nearly 350 of the 400 registered houses in the affected region have been damaged, Asianet reported, citing district officials.

The Indian Navy said its disaster relief team had reached the area on Tuesday night and search and rescue helicopters were deployed early on Wednesday but adverse weather conditions due to "incessant rains" posed challenges.

India has witnessed extreme weather conditions in recent years, from torrential rain and floods to droughts and cyclones, blamed by some experts on climate change.

"Climate change has led to significant alterations in our environment. We need to take proactive steps to address and adapt to these changes," Chief Minister Vijayan said. "Effective measures should be taken to prevent impending disasters."

The region hit by the landslide was forecast to get 204 millimetres (8 inches) of rainfall but ended up getting 572 millimetres (22.5 inches) over a period of 48 hours, Vijayan said on Tuesday.

"The Arabian Sea is warming at a higher rate compared to other regions and sending more evaporation into the atmosphere, making the region a hotspot for deep convective clouds," said S Abhilash, head of the Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research at Kerala's Cochin University of Science and Technology.

"Deep developed clouds in the southeast Arabian Sea region were carried by winds towards land and produced this havoc," he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengatill, Chris Thomas and Jose Devasia; Writing by Tanvi Mehta and YP Rajesh; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Conor Humphries)