New Delhi - The crying of a three-month-old baby led rescuers working at the site of a deadly landslide in India to the infant and its mother buried under debris, an official said on Friday.
Fifty-one bodies have been found in the mounds of mud and stones left by the landslide that devastated the village of Malin in India's western state of Maharashtra on Wednesday morning.
“The rescue work is continuing around the clock despite the incessant rain,” local official Ganesh Patil said by telephone.
National Disaster Response Force personnel were checking the reservoir of a nearby dam on the fast-flowing river adjoining the village for bodies that may have been washed away.
Patil said at least 120 people were still missing and the chances of their survival were slim, but not impossible.
Patil recounted the rescue of three-month-old Rudra Pingle almost 10 hours after the landslide.
The child's incessant wails led rescuers to a mound of mud under which, in a tin shed, they found the infant and his mother.
The mother said she was too weak to shout after a point, but the baby kept crying.
Later the rescue workers found the baby's grandparents nearby, Patil said.
Pingle's family were four of the eight survivors found so far.
Sniffer dogs were being used to look for possible survivors and bodies.
Mass cremations were being held at a site near the village even as the search continued, NDTV news channel reported. - Sapa-dpa