Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 13 (IANS): The dead body of tourist, Roopesh was recovered 17 hours after he went missing during a minor landslip at Munnar in Kerala's Idukki district of .

Roopesh (43), native of Kozhikode, went missing on Saturday after a landslide swept away the tempo traveller in which he was travelling. The vehicle plunged into a 100 m deep gorge.

A 24-member team of tourists, including Roopesh was returning from Munnar's top station in two vehicles when the tempo traveller in which he was travelling was caught in heavy rainfall.

With mud and boulders filling the road, the vehicle was not able to move and Roopesh and the driver made everyone else move to a safe place and were trying to push the vehicle. Suddenly mud and boulders came falling again. While the driver jumped to safety, Roopesh was hit by boulders and went missing.

Earlier, the Meteorology department had issued an orange alert in Munnar, which is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state.

The Idukki district collector Sheeba George has banned traffic from Munnar -Vattavada road till further orders and night traffic has been banned in Devikulam traffic from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

A.Raja, MLA of Devikulam while speaking to the media persons said that the heavy and incessant rain has made search operations difficult. He said that the search operations continued on Sunday morning and the body was found near the gorge from where the damaged van was also found.