Aizawl: Five persons from two families, including a minor girl, were killed in a massive landslide triggered by extremely heavy rainfall on Saturday at Tlungvel village in Mizoram’s Aizawl district.
The heavy rainfall between 1 AM and 2 AM swept away three houses of the village and a couple and their four-year-old daughter were killed in the landslide. Their 11-year-old son, however, survived with minor injuries.
The bodies of the girl and her mother were recovered, but the man’s body was found two km away where he was swept away by a flash flood. An elderly woman and her 25-year-old son living in the same village were also killed in the landslide, police said, adding another house, which had been abandoned, was also destroyed in the calamity.
A number of landslides were also reported from across Mizoram which caused road blockades. Telecommunication lines were snapped and power supply was also disrupted in some places, the reports said.
The landslide also damaged or exposed at least 19 graves at Khatla cemetery here.
Khatla local council sources said the bones in the graves were being collected by local volunteers and reburied in a mass grave at a nearby place inside the cemetery.
Prayers were offered by a church elder. The cemetery had earlier been badly damaged by landslide in September 1997 when 68 graves were destroyed, they added. (PTI)
