Tupul, Noney: Pougong Lung Gangmei, 71, was on guard duty near the under-construction Tupul Railway Station in Manipur’s Noney district Wednesday night, when he heard a “roaring gust of wind”.

A resident of the nearby Makhuam village, he worked as a night guard for a camp of labourers employed at the railway project site. The camp and the project site are about 100 metres apart.

“I started screaming to warn them, but it was too late…By the time we reached the site, there were only trees and mud,” he recalled, while speaking to ThePrint.

Pougong Lung was among the first to witness, and barely escaped, the massive landslide that hit the site of the proposed railway station that night.

The Army said in a statement Friday that 18 people, including 13 Territorial Army personnel and five civilians, have been rescued so far, while rescue teams have retrieved 20 bodies. However, 44 others (15 Territorial Army personnel and 29 civilians) are still missing.

When ThePrint reached the Tupul railway camp Friday morning, the area was littered with remnants of tin roofs and uprooted trees.

Rescue teams that included Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel had by Friday morning “retrieved at least 10 bodies” just from the Tupul railway project site.

Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, who visited the area Friday morning, told ThePrint that the disaster was one of the worst the state had ever witnessed.

“We are hoping we are able to find all the bodies within 2-3 days. It will take as much time because the soil is so soft, our heavy vehicles could not reach the site,” he added.

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Namjolung Gangmei (35), a driver for one of the sub-contractors at the railway construction site, was resting at the labour camp when he heard Pougong Lung scream.

“The two of us immediately went down with torches to inspect the site. It was pitch dark. But there were only trees where the camp once stood, and mud. We immediately left the area,” Namjolung told ThePrint.

It was only in the morning that residents of Makhuam, located five kilometres away, managed to alert the officials.

“They (villagers from Makhaum) were the first people who gave the information to the state. As soon as we got information, we took action,” said Awangbow Newmai, minister of relief and disaster management in the Manipur government.

According to Newmai, 90 personnel of the NDRF and SDRF are involved in ongoing rescue operations. Another 34 NDRF personnel are on their way from Silchar, he added.

Located about 60 kilometres from the capital city of Imphal, the Tupul Railway Station was to be part of a 111 km-long Jiribam-Imphal railway project, which has been under construction ever since then railways minister Suresh Prabhu laid the foundation stone for Imphal’s railway station in July 2016.

The proposed railway station — located on the banks of the Ijei river which snakes its way through hills in the district — was intended to be a major intersection between Jiribam and Imphal.

An official from the Northeast Frontier Railway told ThePrint that an outpost of the Territorial Army, which is a volunteer force, usually has “three-four lookouts”.

“But the disaster seems to have happened within seconds or minutes, they weren’t able to inform anyone,” he added.

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