Modi to visit Wayanad amid rising Centre-Kerala tensions

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will undertake an aerial survey of the landslide-ravaged Wayanad in Kerala on August 10 amid rising tensions between the Centre and the state over the tragedy.

More than 300 people have been killed and some 150 are still reported missing in the July 30 disaster that the opposition wants the Centre to declare as a national disaster.

List of missing being readied

The search for those missing from Chooralmala and Mundakkai areas is still on. Full ViewThe Kerala government has said it was preparing an accurate list of the missing, some or most of whom it is feared may be dead.

Modi’s visit comes a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded that the families of the dead and the injured must be paid higher compensation.

Union minister angers Kerala

Union Forests and Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav’s charge that the Kerala government was to blame for the disaster by abetting illegal habitation and mining in the forested locality has sparked anger in the state.

Earlier, the Centre had accused Kerala of failing to heed the weather warnings about heavy and potentially landslide-inducing rains in Wayanad in the days preceding July 30. A fuming Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Centre’s weather warnings fell wide off the mark.

Kerala CM hits back

He pointed out that India Meteorological Department had forecast normal rains for Wayanad in the days preceding the disaster. Vijayan also said that the Central Water Commission and the Geological Survey of India did not raise the red flag about flooding or landslides. Vijayan hit back at Yadav, accusing the latter of denigrating the disaster-struck people, including the dead and the missing, as “illegal occupiers”.