Posted October 31, 2014 20:12:36
Sniffer dogs are being used in the search for bodies buried under tonnes of mud following a landslide in central Sri Lanka this week.
Rescue operations were suspended on Thursday due to fresh rains, but resumed at daybreak with a team of sniffer dogs joining hundreds of troops already at the site
Although officials have estimated that around 100 people lost their lives on the Meeriyabedda tea plantation, only a handful of bodies have been dug out from the mud.
'We are using the sniffer dogs to look for any bodies,' an officer in charge of the sniffer dog unit said.
The military stepped up its search for victims on Thursday, deploying earth-moving machinery to the site in the village of Haldummulla, 190 kilometres from the capital, Colombo.
The officer told reporters that more mechanical diggers were expected to join in the search effort.
The national Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said 150 houses were buried in Wednesday's landslide, which stretched three kilometres and engulfed the village after days of heavy monsoonal rains.
Disaster management minister Mahinda Amaraweera, who visited the disaster site, said it was unlikely there would be any survivors.
Authorities have been able to account for 227 residents who escaped because they were either at work or in school when their homes were swamped, the DMC said.
One hundred people were still listed as missing, it said.
Several countries, including India and the United States, have offered to help in the recovery effort.
A US state department spokeswoman said Washington was working on a response after receiving an official request for assistance from the government in Colombo.
More than 1,200 people living in neighbouring tea plantations have sheltered in two schools fearing more mudslides in the picturesque, but unstable tea-growing mountain region, DMC officials said.
If the death toll does reach triple figures, the disaster would be the country's worst since the December 2004 tsunami when 31,000 people died.
AFP/Reuters
Map: Site of the Sri Lankan landslide in Haldummulla, Uva Province
Posted by Unknown on Friday, October 31, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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