Nilgiris Mudslides, Tamil Nadu: TNSTC Bus Buried at Burliar, Driver Dead; Over 200 Vehicles Stranded

What happened

Heavy rain loosened the slopes on the Coonoor ghat road in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, on the night of Friday, 23 October 2026. A Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) bus was buried by a mudslide near Burliar, the village at the foot of the ghat on National Highway 181, between Mettupalayam and Coonoor. Mud, rocks and uprooted trees came down on it. Only the driver and the conductor were on board, according to police as quoted by PTI. Rescuers spent hours digging both men out of neck-deep slush. The driver died of his injuries; the conductor was seriously hurt and was in intensive care at the Mettupalayam hospital, ETV Bharat reported. Updated 26 October 2026, about 10.30 am IST.

The exact hour is reported differently. The Hindu’s video report and Onmanorama place the slide late on Friday night, around midnight, and ETV Bharat Tamil puts it between about 11 pm and 11:30 pm. Many wire reports date it Saturday, 24 October, because that is when it became news. We say the night of 23 to 24 October.

The bus and the people on it

PTI (as carried by The Tribune and Siasat), Deccan Chronicle and DT Next all say the bus was on the Coonoor to Mettupalayam run and had carried three passengers, who got off shortly before Burliar (Deccan Chronicle names the stop as Kurumbadi). The conductor told Daily Thanthi there were no passengers at all, only the two of them, and that the slide caught them while they were trying to stop the bus safely after trees fell across the road. Other reports differ. ETV Bharat’s English report says seven passengers were dropped after a tree fell, and that the bus then took another road, where another tree had fallen, and stopped in a flooded low-lying stretch. ETV Bharat Tamil says six passengers on the bus were rescued safely, and a Daily Thanthi report mentions about 50 passengers saved because they had been dropped earlier after a puncture; that report does not say whether this is the same bus. The route is also reported as Coonoor to Coimbatore (ETV Bharat English). We cannot settle the passenger count or the route from what we have read, and we do not name the crew.

Others caught in the same slide

ETV Bharat Tamil (25 October) carries the account of a pickup-van driver, a chicken-shop owner from Coonoor, who was helping guide vehicles near the bus. He says the slide pushed his van, parked behind the bus, about 100 feet down the slope, where tree branches stopped it. He climbed a tree, then sheltered under a rock, and climbed back up on his own around 6 am. He was treated in intensive care for injuries to both hands and legs, the report says. Onmanorama separately reports a vegetable truck that lost control ahead of a Kottayam school bus and fell nearly 100 feet into a gorge on Friday night, which caused a jam. PTI mentions a cargo vehicle carrying poultry that overturned. We cannot tell whether these are one vehicle or more, and we found no report of a death among them.

Also stranded were school groups from Kerala returning from Ooty. PTI says more than 100 Kerala students had a narrow escape because their two buses had stopped about 300 metres behind the slide. ETV Bharat and DT Next say more than 150 students were rescued with ropes, and The Hindu’s video says more than 300 people were rescued. Onmanorama describes one Kottayam school group of 78 students and 8 teachers who were stuck from about 11 pm and were helped across the blocked road with ropes. All the groups were reported safe. PTI says the students were taken to Mettupalayam by minibus and given food and shelter. More than 200 vehicles were stranded.

The rain, the alerts and the slides

Burliar recorded 25 cm of rain in 24 hours, the district’s highest; Kil Kotagiri Estate had 20 cm and Coonoor PTO 17 cm (PTI). The Hindu’s video gives the Burliar figure as 250 mm, which is the same amount. The Regional Meteorological Centre in Chennai put the Nilgiris under a red alert for extremely heavy rain on Saturday, 24 October, according to PTI and DT Next. ETV Bharat’s English report calls it an orange alert, so the colour is contested. DT Next’s live blog shows an orange alert for very heavy rain issued on 23 October, with very heavy rain forecast for the Nilgiris on 24, 25 and 26 October; the red alert for Saturday came after that.

The number of slides varies with the report. Onmanorama counted 14 locations on the Coonoor road and three on the Kotagiri road on Saturday afternoon; Daily Thanthi and DT Next said more than 10. PTI quotes the Revenue Minister for slides at about seven places, in a line it ties to Erode, so that figure may not be about the Nilgiris. The Ooty to Mettupalayam and Ooty to Coonoor highways were blocked and vehicles queued from Mettupalayam to Karamadai. At Theetukkal in Ooty, a hotel’s retaining wall collapsed and damaged two cars and six two-wheelers; a night watchman trapped in the mud was rescued by fire and rescue staff. PTI says slides also hit Kodaikanal and the Bodimettu Ghat road on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border.

Response and restrictions

• Clearance and rescue: more than 20 earthmoving machines from the Highways, Fire and Rescue and Revenue departments (Deccan Chronicle); NDRF and SDRF teams were deployed in the district (DT Next). District Collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru inspected the clearance work on the Mettupalayam road.
• Tourists: tourist spots were shut and visitors were told to stay away. Onmanorama and ETV Bharat say the ban on tourist movement ran until 26 October; PTI and Daily Thanthi say three days from 24 October. The Guardian Chronicle says the Forest Department closed Catherine Falls and Kodanad Viewpoint.
• Traffic: vehicles were barred from 6 pm to 7 am for three days, except emergency vehicles (PTI, Daily Thanthi). Public buses to Ooty were halted at Mettupalayam, Onmanorama reports. ETV Bharat advised using the Kotagiri-Mettupalayam road while it was open, and ETV Bharat Tamil, on 25 October, said traffic between Mettupalayam, Coonoor and Ooty stayed suspended until repairs on the slide sites were done.
• Schools and the hill railway: schools in six taluks (Udhagamandalam, Coonoor, Kotagiri, Kundah, Gudalur and Pandalur) were shut on Saturday; the mountain train was cancelled.
• Helpline: the public were asked to call the toll-free number 1077 for help.

We found no report of compensation for the driver’s family and no official finding on why the bus was on that stretch at that time.

DT Next, updated at 2.57 am on 26 October, gives the latest road position we could find. Heavy rain hit the Nilgiris for a third day on Sunday. About 30 spots on the Ooty-Mettupalayam and Kotagiri-Ooty ghat roads had been blocked by fallen trees, mud or boulders over two days, and continuing rain was slowing the clearing. Daytime traffic was being allowed only on the Kotagiri route, which caused congestion; the 6 pm to 7 am ban on vehicles, including government buses (essential supplies excepted), stayed in force. All tourist spots in the district remained closed and the Collector again asked tourists to stay away. The paper does not report a reopening of the Coonoor ghat road. It also says a 15-member team was searching for a man swept away by flash floods at Solur Mattam; that is a separate case from the bus, and we found no other report of it.

What is coming

DT Next’s live blog (last updated 25 October) says a system over the Bay of Bengal was expected to become a cyclonic storm, to be named Arnab, by the morning of 26 October and reach the Andhra Pradesh coast around 28 October, and that cyclone warning signal No. 1 was hoisted at nine Tamil Nadu and Puducherry ports. It also lists very heavy rain for the Nilgiris on 25 and 26 October. IANS, published at 9.06 am on 26 October, says the system became a deep depression on Sunday, is expected to become a cyclonic storm on Monday and may cross the Andhra Pradesh coast between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam by the forenoon of 28 October, subject to later bulletins. Its list of Tamil Nadu districts under rain warnings (southern, delta and central districts) does not include the Nilgiris, and we could not find a source linking that system to the rain in the Nilgiris. Check the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai and the Nilgiris district administration for the current alert before any hill trip.

Why this matters

This was not a freak event. Two days of extremely heavy rain on steep, saturated slopes, with trees standing on them, is the usual set-up for a ghat-road slide; our note on landslide-prone regions lists the warning signs. What made this night deadly was that vehicles were on the road when the slope let go. We do not suggest the crew did anything wrong; the conductor’s own account is that trees began falling across the road and they were trying to stop safely when the slide came. The open question is one of planning: whether services and tourist traffic should be running through a ghat at night under a heavy-rain alert, and whether warnings reach the people on the road in time. The same rain-and-slope pattern killed people in Japan after Typhoon Dujuan, and a flash flood hit Kerala at Nilambur in September. Hill-road crashes are a separate risk, as at Ananthagiri Ghat.

Lessons for readers

• Do not start a ghat journey in a red or orange alert for heavy rain. If it is essential, go in daylight, tell someone your route and keep the fuel tank full.
• Follow the night ban and the tourist advisory. They exist because slides come with little warning and rescue at night is slower.
• If trees or mud start coming down ahead, stop well short of the slope, never beneath it, and keep an exit behind you. Do not drive on towards debris, and do not cross freshly slid ground on foot. If you can turn back safely, do so.
• Never park or wait directly under a cut slope or a leaning tree. Hundreds of people on this road were stuck for hours in a queue under the same hillside.
• Warning signs: new cracks or a trickle of muddy water on the slope, small stones rolling down, a tree leaning more than yesterday, a rumbling sound. Move at once to firm ground, sideways and out of the path of the slide.
• Tourists and tour operators: check the district advisory before you leave, and do not push a school or family group through a blocked ghat. Waiting a day costs little.
• If you meet floodwater or heavy runoff on the road, follow our stop, turn around, evacuate guide.

If you are in the Nilgiris

Call 112 for police, fire and ambulance, 108 for an ambulance, and the district toll-free number 1077 for disaster help. Our state-wise helpline list and note on 112, 101 and 108 have the rest. When a cyclone is on the way, read our cyclone safety note.

More on Udhagamandalam (Ooty): see our fire and emergency safety guide for emergency numbers, the fire stations and the local risks to know.

What is still not known

We do not know how many people were on the bus or which way it was heading, or how the conductor and the pickup-van driver are doing now. We do not know whether the driver’s death will be followed by any inquiry or compensation, or when the Coonoor road will reopen to all vehicles and the tourist ban will end; neither had been announced in the reports we saw on 26 October. The alert colour at the time of the slide is reported both ways. We will update this page when the district administration or the Highways Department gives the road status. Updated 26 October 2026, about 10.30 am IST.