Soldiers help dig for bodies, as stench rises in Bombay landslide

BOMBAY, India - Frequently using bare hands, soldiers and firefighters retrieved more bodies Friday from a landslide that buried a shantytown. The confirmed death toll rose to 71 but was expected to rise past 100.

The rescuers said witnesses estimated that 40 missing people could still be buried under mud and boulders.

''There is still a strong smell at the site, so there is a possibility that more bodies are still under the debris,'' said Pravin Chheda, a city councilor.

Volunteers sprayed insecticide and eucalyptus oil to fight flies and the stench of decomposing corpses. And authorities ordered 200 masks for relief workers who have been working in shifts to dig out bodies since the landslide struck on Wednesday evening.

On Friday, more than 100 people waited on a narrow road leading to the devastated area for word on the fate of loved ones.

In Bombay, skies cleared after two days of heavy monsoon rains. Knee-deep water receded and buses and trains resumed service in the city of nearly 15 million people.

But incessant rains continued to lash other parts of the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Including those killed in the landslide, 135 people have died in the storms since Wednesday, Press Trust of India news agency said.

The army rescued more than 3,000 people in Gujarat state which recorded 22 inches of rain in the past two days, the highest in nearly five decades, PTI said.

Clear skies made the recovery operation easier but municipal workers had mostly given up hope of finding survivors.

Bulldozers plowed down 40 tin and concrete huts to make a path to the hill where poor migrants had built their homes in Azad Nagar shanty in northeastern Bombay.

As dump trucks loaded with debris lumbered past, relatives huddled near the site to identify and collect battered corpses.

Abdul Miya, 27, offered prayers at the Gaibansha burial ground for two sons lost in the slide.

''I don't know how I managed to get out. How I wish I had got hold of my sons and pushed them out first,'' he said. Miya said he would wait to tell his wife about the children until she recovered from her own injuries.

At least 46 people are recovering in two hospitals from head injuries and fractures.

Most victims were poor migrants from southern and central Indian states who had left their villages in the hope of earning more money in Bombay.

Residents of the shantytown said they had been ordered to leave before the slide.

''We knew our homes were unsafe,'' said carpenter Hassan Ali, 32. ''But we have nowhere else to go.''