Four bodies – including of two pre-teens – were fished out from two swollen rivers in Mizoram on Monday by volunteers that have been searching for the bodies for almost three days.
Lalrinpuia, 13, and Lalrosanga, 12, had gone missing on Saturday evening on the banks of the Tuirivang river near Phulpui village where they lived. They had gone to the river to fish.
A search operation involving volunteers from several neighboring villages began that night itself, and all churches in the area closed their doors on Sunday so villagers could take part in the search.
The search continued through the night when, at 11 am Monday, volunteers found the bodies of the two boys after pulling out some bamboo poles they had stuck in the river to grab the bodies as they were swept downriver.
In another incident, volunteers found the bodies of two men who went missing after a maxicab they were traveling in from Hailakandi in Assam plunged into the swollen Tlawng river around midnight Thursday.
Five of their co-passengers had been thrown out of the vehicle as it tumbled down the gorge bordering the river, and the second driver had fled and returned to Assam.
A massive search operation involving several hundred volunteers was launched Friday to find the two missing men, including the driver Mintu Deb and another person identified only as Vinod.
Their bodies were finally found around 9 am Monday several score downriver volunteers, and were sent home to their families after post-mortems.