Sixteen persons were killed in a landslide caused due to incessant rainfall in Maharashtra’s Raigad district on Wednesday night.

Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant said that the incident occurred around 10.30 pm in the district’s Irsalgad village, reported The Indian Express.

At least 21 persons were rescued and more are suspected to be trapped in debris. The rescue operations, however, were called off on Thursday evening due to heavy rainfall, reported ANI.

“It is a very remote inaccessible area which is hampering rescue attempts,” Samant said. “More people are feared to be trapped and NDRF [National Disaster Response Force] and district administration is making attempts to rescue people.”

Out of 40 houses in the village, 17 are buried under the debris, said SB Singh, Commandant of the fifth battalion of the National Disaster Response Force.

“We have deployed four teams to conduct the rescue operations,” Singh said. “The debris at some of the places is 10 to 29 feet deep. It is difficult to bring in heavy machinery to this place. It is a 2.8 kilometres trek to reach the spot and we have to remove the debris manually which is likely to take a lot of time. While we are facing difficulties, we will continue our operations till we retrieve the last person.”

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the village has a population of over 200, and around 80 of them are confirmed to be alive. Some of them were elsewhere when the landslide occurred, he said.

Fadnavis also said that the number of people trapped in the landslide was not clear. He added that rescue operations have been hampered by heavy rainfall and authorities were trying to gauge if earth-moving machines could be airlifted to the village.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who visited the site on Thursday, announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the families of those who died.

More than 2,200 people have been evacuated as heavy rainfall has created a flood-like situation in parts of Raigad district, reported PTI.

At least 125 houses in the district have been damaged and 17 out of 28 dams in Raigad are overflowing.

The India Meteorological Department had on Wednesday issued orange alerts in Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts for Thursday and Friday. An orange alert is for a rainfall range between 115.6mm to 204.4 mm.

The weather department also issued a yellow alert for Mumbai as the city recorded close to 100 mm of rain in the past 24 hours. The Santacruz observatory in the city recorded 99 mm of rain, while the coastal observatory at Colaba recorded 85 mm of rainfall till 8.30 am on Thursday, reported The Indian Express.

A yellow alert signifies bad weather conditions and the probability of the conditions becoming worse, causing disruptions to daily life. The city administration has also asked all private and government-run schools in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Raigad to remain closed on Thursday in anticipation of heavy rainfall, reported NDTV.