Search mission continues in landslide-hit Wayanad; special drive held to retrieve documents

WAYANAD: A special camp to retrieve official documents of the landslide survivors who lost everything was held on Monday in the disaster-hit regions of Wayanad, where a search mission to locate missing people continued.

A total of 1,162 essential documents have been distributed among 872 persons at the camp, the district administration here said.

Ration and Aadhar cards, bank pass books, voter IDs, pan cards, health and motor vehicle insurance papers, driving licences, birth and death certificates, labour cards, pension mustering documents, educational certificates and so on were among the various documents retrieved and distributed among the affected persons.

More camps would be organised for those who couldn't avail the facility, the authorities added.

The camps were held in select schools in Meppadi here as part of the certificate/document retrieval campaign jointly carried out by the Local Self Government department, district administration and the state IT Mission.

Arrangements were made at the camps for the landslide survivors, who are either staying in camps or other places, so that they could come and retrieve their lost documents or certificates, district authorities said earlier.

Meanwhile, a 190-member team of personnel from the NDRF, police, fire force, civil defence force, forest department and rescue volunteers carried out search operations in five zones of the disaster-struck region.

The search to find missing persons was stopped on Sunday after heavy rains in the Mundakkai and Chooralmala hamlets.

According to the state government, the landslides killed 229 people and over 130 are still missing. Of the total bodies recovered, 51 are yet to be identified, they added.