Five of one family found dead in Ganjam landslide village, toll rises to seven

Rescuers working on a remote hilltop in south Odisha on Thursday recovered the bodies of a young couple and their three children, taking the toll at landslide-hit Ghidipabali village in Ganjam district to seven. Six people are still missing, eight days after the hill came down on the sleeping village.

The dead were identified as Bijaya Pradhan, 25, his wife Bhumika, 27, their son Aruna, 7, and daughters Bijayalaxmi, 6, and Bagri, 1. Two of the bodies were found earlier in the day and three more by the time the search closed for the evening, Kandhamal Collector Vedbhushan said at Phulbani. The family chose to perform the last rites at the site, and the administration helped them do so.

A village cut off

Successive landslides struck Ghidipabali in Bhanjanagar block, near the Ganjam-Kandhamal border, at about 3 am on October 28, when the rains of Cyclone Arnab were lashing the region. Houses were buried under rocks, uprooted trees and mud.

The village has no road. It can be reached only on foot, through Kandhamal, which is why the Kandhamal administration has been leading the search even though the village falls in Ganjam. Teams of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force, the National Disaster Response Force, the fire services and the Railways are on the hill. The search was halted on Wednesday by bad weather and resumed on Thursday; the collector said it will go on.

“The entire administration stands in solidarity with the families of victims,” Vedbhushan said. “We will ensure that the necessary compensation is provided to the next of kin of the victims.”

Thirteen villagers escaped and are staying at a relief camp in Kilapanga Primary School in Kandhamal. Rinima Malik, 26, who lost her husband and other relatives, has two children and has asked the government to resettle the survivors. “I do not want to return to Ghidipabali where I lost my husband and other relatives,” she said.

Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari has said the government will build houses and rehabilitate the village’s residents. That work will fall to the Ganjam administration. Counting the floods and the landslide, Cyclone Arnab has now claimed 11 lives in Odisha.

Odisha asks the Centre for help

Earlier on Thursday, the state asked the Centre for ₹2,526 crore in assistance for the damage from Arnab and the floods that followed in Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal. It has also sought a further ₹10,000 crore as special assistance for long-term measures to stop floods doing the same damage year after year, Special Relief Commissioner Rajesh Prabhakar Patil said.

The demands were placed before an eight-member central team led by Ravi Shankar, a joint secretary in the Union Home Ministry, after it toured flood-hit parts of Gajapati and Ganjam and met Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi. The team walked through paddy fields ruined close to harvest, breached embankments along the Rushikulya river and washed-away roads and bridges.

“Odisha frequently faces natural calamities such as floods, cyclones and heatwaves,” Majhi told the team, pressing for cyclone- and flood-resistant infrastructure. Ravi Shankar said several houses had become structurally weak in the floods though they had not collapsed, and that most roads had been restored for traffic. The team suggested long-term desilting of the Rushikulya.

The team is expected to send its report to the Centre within eight to ten days, Patil said.