Malaysia landslide: Death toll rises to 31, search ends

The death toll from a landslide at a campsite in Malaysia has risen to 31.

The landslide occurred on December 16, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Kuala Lumpur, at a campsite in Batang Kali town of Selangor district.

Ninety-two people were sleeping at the campsite when tons of soil and mud thundered down a hill.

Among the deceased were 11 children. All those who died were Malaysian nationals.

A total of 61 campers were rescued. Many of the victims were families enjoying their year-end holidays.

Rescuers: 'We found the last body'

Rescuers called off the search for bodies after the last missing person was recovered on Saturday — a boy aged between 7 and 12 years.

His body was found in a sleeping bag more than one meter below Earth's surface.

"We found the last body, that of a boy. We will end our search and rescue operations," said senior rescue official Hafisham Mohamad Noor.

Two of the deceased — a mother and her baby daughter — were found hugging each other, while another man was uncovered still clutching his dog.

For close to 10 days, nearly 700 government and emergency services personnel, backed by police tracker dogs and earth-moving machines, trawled through the debris searching for survivors and bodies.

Authorities said that while the farm was licensed, it did not have permission to run a campsite and had been doing so illegally for the last two years.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced an aid of 10,000 ringgit (€2,125, $2,266) to the family members of every deceased person and 1,000 ringgit to the survivors.

A regular disaster prone region

The disaster struck just outside the Genting Highlands, a popular tourist destination known for its natural beauty and famous resorts.

According to authorities, one of the causes of the landslide could have been the "accumulation of underground water and high soil saturation" beneath the campsite.

About 450,000 cubic meters of soil was displaced in the landslide.

Every year end, after heavy rains Malaysia tends to be punctuated with landslides.

However, no heavy rains were recorded in Batang Kali area on the night of the calamity.

Previously, one of the deadliest mudslides in Malaysia occurred in 1993 when heavy rains caused a 12-storey residential building near Kuala Lumpur to collapse, killing 48 people.

In December 2021, about 21,000 people were displaced after torrential rains caused floods in seven states across the country.

ns/sri (DPA, AFP)