Mizoram stone quarry collapse: 8 killed, 4 missing in Hnahthial

Aizawl: At least eight people were killed and four others are believed to be still missing in the stone quarry collapse that occurred at Maudarh village in south Mizoram’s Hnahthial district on Monday, an official said. 

The official said that 8 bodies out of 12 people reportedly missing have been recovered from the debris of the massive landslide till 9 am on Tuesday. 

 A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team of 2 officers and 13 staff arrived at the spot on Tuesday morning, he said.

People present at the site also said that troopers of Assam Rifles and Border Security Force (BSF) were also part of the rescue operation.

Rescue operation is going on and will continue till all the missing persons are found, the official added. 

Of the 12 persons reportedly missing, 4 were employees of ABCI Infrastructures Pvt Ltd while 8 others were a contractor’s employees, Hnahthial district deputy commissioner said.

He said that five earth excavators and one each of stone crusher and drilling machine were also completely buried under the debris.

The area of the landslide is approximately 5,000 square metres, he said.

Earlier, Hnahthial Superintendent of Police (SP) Vineet Kumar had said that the gory incident occurred at around 3 pm on Monday at Maudarh village, which is a 45 minute travel from Hnahthial town. 

13 people were working when a massive landslide occured at the stone quarry and one worker managed to escape from the spot, the SP had said. 

Eye witnesses said that the workers had dug too deep and had upset the stability of the stone quarry resulting in the entire hill coming down on the workers.

The stone quarry is owned by the ABCI, which is executing a widening of a section of national highway-54 between Hnahthial town and Dawn village.

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