Mudslide kills five including a pregnant woman in Cachar

- Victims include a pregnant woman engaged by DRDA in earth-cutting Source: Telegraph India


A crowd gathers at the site where the five labourers were killed in a mudslip on Tuesday. A Telegraph picture
Silchar May 20: A pregnant woman filling in for a relative was among five road workers killed in an avalanche on hill they were cutting in a Cachar village this afternoon.

Around 12, villagers of Srinagar, about 5km from Silchar, heard a huge roar followed by wails from the hill where labourers engaged by the Cachar District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) were collecting soil for laying a road to Rajartilla village.

“Suddenly there was a roar, and before we could gauge what was happening, huge mounds of mud, along with loose soil, came rolling down the hillock,” said Amulaya Das, a peasant.
The earth-cutting had begun since morning and by the noon there was a gaping hole in the hill.

All the victims — Bhanu Das, 65, Nanda Das, 48, Sagar Bagti, 28, Raghunath Rabidas, 30, and Soma Bagti, 25 — were working for the DRDA under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Soma was five months’ pregnant and was not supposed to report for duty, as her name did not figure on the list of workers for today.
She was included following a last-minute change in the list after one of her relatives, who was also enlisted as a worker in the programme, pleaded for replacement.

Soma’s inconsolable mother kept repeating how she had been looking forward to the birth in the family by end-September.
The two injured, Suhit Malakar and Birbal Malakar, were taken to Silchar Medical College and Hospital in Ghoonger. The expenses were borne by the district administration.

Cachar deputy commissioner Goutam Ganguli said he has ordered monetary relief of Rs 50,000 each to the next of kin of the deceased under the chief minister’s Jibanjyoti scheme.

Policemen were deployed in the village after angry residents threw stones at a few cars and trucks to protest the “mishap”.
A magisterial probe has been ordered into the circumstances leading to the mishap. Cachar DRDA director Naresh Ghosh, who is also an additional deputy commissioner, will conduct the inquiry and submit the report in a week’s time.