A landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rain hit a highway tunnel construction project in southern India on July 7, killing at least three workers.
The landslide occurred in Kerala, a state on India’s southwest coast, on the outskirts of the Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi double-tube highway tunnel project. According to local media reports, the Kerala Fire and Rescue Services, police and other agencies continued to search the site after earth and rock engulfed part of the construction area.
Video broadcast by NDTV and other Indian television channels showed a large portion of the slope collapsing into the work zone, sweeping away construction equipment and vehicles.
Konkan Railway Corp., the project’s executing agency, says the project includes approximately 5 miles of twin one-way highway tunnels, four-lane approach roads and associated bridges aimed at improving year-round transportation across the mountainous Western Ghats.
According to Konkan Railway project documents, Kerala authorities periodically close existing mountain roads in the region due to landslides and heavy monsoon rains.
Konkan Railway is executing the project under a tripartite agreement with the Kerala Public Works Department and the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board.
According to a regulatory filing by Dilip Buildcon Ltd., Konkan Railway awarded the company the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the tunnel works. Konkan Railway and Dilip Buildcon put the total value of the project at around $250 million, with the tunnel contract valued at approximately $157 million.
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Konkan Railway project documents say construction began in 2024 and is expected to take about four years.
Authorities have not determined what caused the slope to fail or whether construction activity contributed to the landslide, nor have engineering findings been released. State officials said they would investigate whether spoil management at the site contributed to the disaster.
Sunny Joseph, a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly, told The Indian Express that the district collector had previously ordered that the accumulated excavated soil be removed from the site.
“The order was not considered and the construction company went ahead with the tunnel work,” he said.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, the minister in charge of Wayanad district, T. Siddique, called the incident “a man-made landslide” and “a clear case of neglect”, alleging that excavated material had piled up near the work area despite earlier warnings. These allegations have not been substantiated through official investigation.
The project crosses the Western Ghats, a UNESCO World Heritage mountain range that stretches along India’s southwest coast and is prone to landslides during the annual monsoon. Wayanad came to international attention in 2024 when catastrophic landslides elsewhere in the district killed hundreds of people.
Konkan Railway says the tunnel is being constructed using the new Austrian tunneling method, a phased excavation technique widely used for tunneling through rock. Before Tuesday’s landslide, preparatory excavation and reinforcement work had been carried out at the Meppadi portal.
Neither Konkan Railway nor Dilip Buildcon had publicly commented on the incident at the time of publication or responded to requests for comment on construction activities, slope stabilization measures or debris disposal practices.
Authorities had not released a final casualty count at the time of publication as rescue operations continued.
