Provide essential items to people living in areas around landslide site: Kerala ministers

Wayanad (Kerala), Jul 8 (PTI) Kerala ministers T Siddique and A P Anilkumar on Wednesday directed the Wayanad district administration to provide essential items to people living in areas surrounding the site where a landslide on July 7 claimed three lives. The ministers also directed the police and forest authorities to ensure that residents of the various tribal colonies in the area are shifted to safer places, according to a statement issued by the district administration. They directed the district medical officer to urgently set up a health sub-centre equipped with doctors, nurses, and medicines to provide medical services to families isolated in Chooralmala. The directions were issued following a review meeting held by the ministers here. At the meeting, it was also decided that entry to the relief camps would be restricted in view of the privacy of those staying there, and that steps would be taken to identify those who need to be relocated in the Meppadi grama panchayat area, the statement said. If necessary, more relief camps will be opened, it added. At present, 93 people from 33 families have been shifted to the relief camp at Meppadi Polytechnic College. Of them, 27 are men, 32 are women, and 34 are children, the statement said. The district administration said that the bodies of the three migrant workers killed in the landslide had been handed over to the construction company DBL after embalming procedures were completed at the Kozhikode Government Medical College Hospital. Chandraban, an operator from Madhya Pradesh; Bikash Kumar, a civil foreman from Bihar; and Anmol, a worker from Jharkhand, were killed in the landslide. Anmol’s body will be sent to Ranchi on an Indigo flight at 8.30 pm, and DBL officials have assured that the other bodies will also be sent to their respective home states depending on the availability of flights, the statement said. PTI HMP SSK