Till Thursday evening, about 41 bodies, mangled and covered in slush were recovered. Union home minister Rajnath Singh, former agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and state assembly speaker Dilip Walse Patil, visited the village. Three excavators are working round the clock to clear the rubble under which over 60 houses lie buried.
Government medical teams and those from private hospitals and fire-brigade personnel are stationed at the stricken village. The teams have been ferrying bodies to the nearest public health centre at Adivare by ambulances. Heavy rain is hampering salvage work. The only shelter for the rescue teams is an old primary school building. This structure and a few locked houses were the ones that escaped getting flattened. As rescue workers sifted through the debris, they found objects like a temple bell, a domestic LPG cylinder, and a mangled motorcycle.
The NDRF team is still searching for survivors and taking utmost care to search for bodies. Of the three excavators, two pushed the silt, and a third loaded thick layers of mud to trucks. Alok Awasthi, commandant of Talegaon-based 5th NDRF Battalion said, "There are around 158 people trapped under the debris. Till late Thursday, we've recovered 31 bodies and eight survivors. The rescue work will take another 48 to 72 hours. Rain is slowing down the work but we are working round the clock."
Expressing condolences to the families of the victims, Rajnath Singh said the PM has released Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the victims, in addition to the assistance under NDRF and the state disaster response fund.
Sharad Pawar said he'd urge the state government to shift such villages located on hill slopes. "A similar incident had taken place near Kamshet in Maval, 25 years back," he recalled. Saurabh Rao, district collector said the response time of the district administration to the Malin village tragedy was about three hours. "Our teams had reached the site around 11am and immediately started the rescue work," Rao said.
For the relatives, it's been an agonizing wait. Many have been sitting around sobbing looking at the rescue work.
"The excavators have been able to remove silt from just one portion so far. It will take several days before all the silt is removed", said Sharada Zhanjare, who lost her sister-in-law, and her in-laws.
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