Malin (Pune): With hopes of finding more survivors fast receding, rescuers have dug out 27 more bodies since Thursday night as the toll in the Malin landslide disaster rose to 73.
Over 100 people are still feared trapped under the debris of the landslide that flattened 44 houses in the village located in a hilly terrain in Ambegaon taluka, in the vicinity of the Bhimashankar forest range.
The NDRF jawans, whose relentless rescue efforts entered the third day on Friday after the village was buried under masses of mud on Wednesday morning, wore masks to keep out stench of the decomposed bodies.
Read: Pune landslide: Malin shattered by death’s bite
With the dead victims whose bodies have been extricated so far include 27 males, 31 females and 10 children, time now stands stands to a still at the Zilla Parishad school in Malin, the hamlet which got all but washed away in the recent landslide.
A mute spectator to the catastrophe, the school appears frozen in time; its classrooms strewn with books, blackboards sporting lessons last taught, the empty swing blowing pointlessly in the wind.
Everything as it once was, except for the students who’ve been swallowed by the disaster.
The school has managed to survive the landslide, only to remain forever empty.
Started some 50 years ago, the school attracted students from neighbouring villages even as it made a mark in primary education in the area.
