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Search Ends for Malaysia Landslide Victims


Students place flowers at the entrance of the SJK (C) Mun Choong school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. Seven female teachers from the school were on an unofficial camping trip at an organic farm that was hit by a landslide, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022.
Students place flowers at the entrance of the SJK (C) Mun Choong school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. Seven female teachers from the school were on an unofficial camping trip at an organic farm that was hit by a landslide, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022.

Rescuers have called off the search for bodies after a massive, predawn landslide blanketed a campsite north of Malaysia's capital killing 31 people, officials said Saturday.

According to police, 92 people, including dozens of children, were sleeping at the unlicensed campsite at an organic farm in Batang Kali, Selangor state on December 16 when tons of soil and mud thundered down a hill.

All of those killed were Malaysian nationals, including 11 children, while 61 campers were rescued.

"We found the last body, that of a boy," senior rescue official Hafisham Mohamad Noor told AFP.

"We will end our search and rescue operations."

Many of the victims were families enjoying the year-end holidays.

Two of the dead, a mother and her toddler daughter, were found hugging each other, while a man was uncovered still clutching his dog.

Nearly 700 personnel from government agencies and emergency services, backed by police tracker dogs and earthmoving machines, trawled through mud and debris to search for survivors and bodies.

The farm did not have a license to operate a campsite, according to authorities.

Landslides are common in Malaysia after heavy rains that regularly punctuate the end of the year. However, no heavy rain was recorded in the Batang Kali area on the night of the landslide.

In March, four people were killed when a landslide buried their homes in a Kuala Lumpur suburb.

In one of the deadliest such incidents, a mudslide in 1993 brought on by heavy rain caused a 12-story residential building outside the capital to collapse, killing 48 people.

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