15 Gajapati Landslide Victims To Be Cremated Today

Paralakhemundi: The cremation of 15 villagers of Baraghara village in Gangabada panchayat of Odisha’s Gajapati district, who had tragically died in a landslide in the Mahendragiri hills on the night of October 11, will be held on Sunday.

Till reports last came in, the rescue teams had so far recovered the bodies of 15 villagers from the debris and efforts were on to trace the body of one more villager.

The bodies will be cremated after the postmortem being conducted at the mishap site by a team of doctors.

According to sources, 16 members of five families living in the foothills of Mahendragiri had taken shelter inside a cave on the mountain top to escape the fury of the very severe cyclonic storm Titli. While they were inside the cave, a landslide took place in which the cave collapsed. The force of the rainwater was so severe that it swept away the bodies of the villagers while some of them were buried under the debris.

Acting on media reports, the district administration had sent a team of district officials led by the district SP, sub-collector accompanied by the District Voluntary Force (DVF) personnel to the mishap site on Saturday.

“The DVF personnel had recovered the bodies of 13 villagers at night while two more were recovered this morning,” Gajapati SP Amulya Das told mediapersons here.

The villagers had told the media that the district administration had not informed them about the cyclonic storm.

Expressing profound grief over the death of the villagers, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has expressed deep condolence to the bereaved families.

Informing about the incident to the media on Saturday, Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) had said that the family of the deceased would be provided ex-gratia once the district administration confirms the death of the villagers.