Drone that can detect buried objects deployed at landslide site in Karnataka

Bengaluru/Thiruvananthapuram: Not leaving anything to chance, the rescue team at the landslide site at Shirur village in Karnataka has deployed a privately developed drone platform-based intelligent underground buried object detection system on Thursday to help them find the missing lorry driver from Kerala.

lnwork Technologies, a partner firm of Quick Pay Pvt Ltd in Noida, has developed this system, which allegedly can operate under adverse conditions and detect buried objects such as weapons caches, mines, tunnels, bodies and other foreign objects up to a depth of 30 meters in soil and water.

Superintendent of police, Uttara Kannada district, M Narayana, confirmed that retired Maj Gen lndrabalan, operations advisor of Quick Pay, is assisting the team at present.

“Army rafting team, along with the equipment, has confirmed the location with high positive reading. Once the radar search is over, army divers will go into the river in search of a human body,” said Narayana.

He also said on July 25 morning, during re-run, the Ebinger Ferromagnetic Locator provided by College of Military Engineering (CME) Pune, identified three distinct spots.

“Challenge now is, we have to identify which of the three is the cabin. It is the most critical information for divers. Our entire effort is to locate the lorry cabin among the three spots, to provide a decision point for the divers on their plan of action,” said Narayana.

Arjun was driving the lorry loaded with timber to Kozhikode when the landslide occurred on July 16. He has been missing for 10 days now, and is presumed dead.

Meanwhile, MLAs from Kerala, who are at the site, putting pressure on Karnataka, said on Thursday that the operation to locate Arjun has been intensified.

Left Democratic Front (LDF) MLAs Sachin Dev and Linto Joseph and United Democratic Front (UDF) legislator A K M Ashraf, who are monitoring the operations at the landslide site, told reporters that all preparations have been completed for the diving team to enter the waters and look for Arjun.

They are using a boom excavator to clear the riverbed right now, and another one is expected to arrive soon, Joseph said.

Ashraf said water flow and the sudden change in weather were the hurdles being faced in carrying out the search and rescue operations.

Dev said if the plan formulated by the experts can be implemented, “then we are confident that our goal can be achieved”. Congress MP M K Raghavan too expressed hope that soon Arjun would be found as the lorry has been located.

Raghavan said the Karnataka government has made use of all agencies, including NDRF, and the army and navy to look for Arjun.