A massive landslide struck near the under-construction Anakkompoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi twin-tunnel road site on Tuesday turned Wayanad into a disaster zone again. At least five people were killed, several others were injured and around seven workers/engineers remained missing.
Heavy monsoon rains—265 mm on a single day—caused the catastrophic landslide at the entrance of the Anakkampoyil–Kalladi–Meppadi twin-tunnel project near Meenakshi Bridge in Kalladi. The sudden collapse of the hillside and a retaining wall buried worker quarters and heavy machinery.
A house and a church have been completely destroyed in the landslide. Several tunnel project workers were staying on-site during the landslide, and officials are still verifying the exact number of people trapped.
Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Fire and Rescue Services, local police, and resident volunteers are actively carrying out search operations on a war footing. Heavy machinery deployment is severely restricted because the thick, unstable mud makes the terrain highly dangerous for earth-movers. Kerala Revenue Minister A.P. Anilkumar and Agriculture Minister T Siddique rushed to the site to coordinate emergency relief efforts.
At least six labourers were pulled alive from the debris near their temporary quarters and rushed to local hospitals. Locals saved three people from the area, which housed workers from the nearby tunnel project. Meppadi SI was also injured during the rescue operations. He has been admitted to the hospital. NDRF units from Meenangadi and Kozhikode have been deployed to lead the rescue efforts.
Following the landslide, Kerala Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan convened an emergency meeting and ordered rescue operations to be executed on a “war footing”. He explicitly blamed the construction contractors for failing to follow early safety warnings.
“The soil there is mixed with mud and has got a different texture. The scrap soil was kept there and that was not stable. The disaster management authority had examined the area and told the contractors to remove it. Failure to remove soil from the place caused this mishap,” CM Satheesan said.
The landslide directly hit the construction layout of the Wayanad Tunnel Project, a flagship 8.7 km project managed by Konkan Railway Corporation Limited.
Congress MP from Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on Tuesday condoled the deaths of persons in the landslide in her constituency, and urged the United Democratic Front (UDF) workers and functionaries to provide support to people affected.
In a post on X, Priyanka said rescue operations were being closely monitored and coordinated by the state administration, with police, the NDRF State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams and civil defence volunteers deployed at the site.
The incident has sparked severe political and environmental scrutiny. Kerala Agriculture Minister T. Siddique and Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan have categorized the tragedy as a “man-made disaster” rather than a purely natural occurrence. Reports indicate that the District Disaster Management Authority had issued strict directives as early as June 20 to clear out mountains of excavated soil. The project contractors allegedly ignored these safety orders, allowing massive mounds of loose mud to stack unscientifically next to the hillsides. This mud directly liquefied and slid during the heavy downpour.
Following the massive, rain-induced debris slip at Kalladi on Tuesday experts have authorities about the severe dangers of building major infrastructure in ecologically sensitive areas. The landslide occurred right near the entrance of the under-construction Kozhikode-Wayanad tunnel road project.Experts note that the Annakkampoyil-Meppadi tunnel passes through highly fragile terrain, the same area devastated by severe landslides in Chooralmala and Mundakkai between 2019 and 2024.
Coming almost two years after the July 2024 Wayanad disaster, this event echoes one of the deadliest landslides in Kerala’s history. In 2024, extreme rainfall caused widespread slope failures across Meppadi, resulting in more than 400 fatalities and severe devastation across the villages of Mundakkai and Chooralmala.