This Article is From Aug 01, 2014

Village was Building a Crematorium. Too Soon, It Will be Put to Use

Village was Building a Crematorium. Too Soon, It Will be Put to Use

Malin, today, is a village in grief with very few left to mourn.

Malin: Malin, just a 130-kilometre drive from Pune, has very few people left to mourn its dead.

At least 61 people have died and nearly 100 remain missing two days after a landslide swallowed the village.

Rescuers on Friday dug through mud and debris but located no survivors.

46 homes were buried after the area was pulverized by heavy rain on Wednesday.

"The houses have been buried under layers of wet mud, which makes chances of survival bleak, since no oxygen can go in," said Gautam Sarkar, a senior official involved with rescue operations.  

Doctors said post-mortem examinations revealed the corpses had suffered heavy battering and severe fractures.  

An ambulance on Friday afternoon brought bodies from the village, wrapped in red body bags, to the medical clinic, in just one of several trips as the death toll swelled.

"Four bodies," an emergency worker called out to clinic staff as the corpses were unloaded.

The villagers were constructing a crematorium on the banks of the river that flows by the village. Too soon, that crematorium has been pressed into service.
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