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A volunteer carries an infant to safety from landslide-hit Chooralmala in Wayanad on July 31. Photo: Onmanorama/Albin Mathew

Grief-stricken Chooralmala | Visual story

George Poikayil
George Poikayil
Published: July 31, 2024 11:17 PM IST Updated: July 31, 2024 11:34 PM IST
Topic | Wayanad

Nestled between tea gardens and hemmed by a babbling stream, the Government Vocational Higher Secondary School at Wayanad's Chooralmala in Meppadi panchayat made a picturesque postcard. On July 30, the picture was disfigured by boulders, ravaging the 2km road leading to the school, crushing cars, and razing around 80 houses on either sides. Multiple landslides turned the stream into a violent river that gobbled up the bridge connecting Chooralmala and Mundakkai. At least 100 residents of the street are dead and scores are missing. "Now, the only thing that can be set up here is a stone crusher," said a resident.
Photographs: Onmanorama/ Albin Mathew

Where a house once stood, all that remains is a showcase and some memories.
Boulders and debris surround this house on the School Road at Chooralmala.
A beautifully arranged living room of this house on the School Road in Chooralmala was knee-deep in mud
The army made a rope bridge to help people cross the flooded Chooralmala.
It wasn't just people that needed rescuing. This dog, seemingly separated from those who raised it, was taken to safety.
By afternoon on July 31, the army began the construction of a Bailey Bridge, a pre-fabricated structure, to aid the rescue.
There is much unspeakable sorrow in every life around here.
The Vocational Higher Secondary School was the best educational institution in Chooralmala.
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Now its verandahs are filled with debris from the landslide.
Inside, we found bedsheets spread over desks laid side by side. The school was functioning as a relief camp before the landslide hit.
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Rescuers search for people inside a house on the School Road at Chooralmala that is filled with debris from the landslide. Photo: Albin Mathew
Only a clothesline remains of this house on the banks of a stream that morphed into a river at Chooralmala
Cars were crushed like toys by the landslide.
A car remains stuck between two houses on the School Road at Chooralmala.
A jeep, the go-to ride in the high ranges, remains stuck in broken cables and debris at Chooralmala. Rescuers search for people inside a house on the School Road at Chooralmala that is filled with debris from the landslide. Photo: Albin Mathew
Day two of the search and rescue mission at Chooralmala.
Rescuers move along a flooded path in Chooralmala that is strewn with boulders.
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