Meppadi (Wayanad): Shivamma (63) was sitting alone and lost in the corridor of Government Higher Secondary School, Meppadi -- the biggest relief camp -- when her old friend and former neighbour Gauri (62) spotted her Friday evening. A few years ago, they worked together in the tea gardens of Harrisons Malayalam, an RPG group company, at Mundakkai in Wayanad's Meppadi panchayat.
"I thought you also died," Gauri said, beaming and reaching out to Shivamma. The joy did not last long. Both knew why. Shivamma's daughter Rathini (45) and her husband Rajendran (50) were among the hundreds who died in the series of landslides that hit Meppadi panchayat. Hoping against hope, the couple stood on top of their house, built three months ago, when the first landslide hit Chooralmala in the early hours of July 30. The second landslide flattened their house. Rajendran's mutilated body was found in Chaliyar River in Nilambur, around 100 km away on Thursday, August 1; and Rathini's body was found nearby the same day. "We identified her by the thali chain," said her brother Madhav.
Gauri knew Shivamma was living with Rathini in the new two-bedroom house. But when the rain started, her two sons Madhav and Nanjandan took her to Chamarajanagar, where they are running a tea shop. "We were born and brought up in Mundakki but left for our ancestral place in 2004 because we were not finding jobs here," said Madhav. Every rainy season, they take their mother to Chamarajanagar, a semi-arid district in Karnataka that shares a narrow border with Wayanad. They came to Chooralmala on Thursday, after finding Rathini's name in the missing list in Kannada newspapers. "Those who built their houses at Chooralmala lost everything. There is no place to step on in Chooralmala," said Shivamma, who was brought to the village at the age of seven, and started working in tea gardens at the age of eight. "My daughter also joined the tea estate but she was regularised only 10 years ago. She wanted to escape from the cramped quarters inside the tea estate so she took a home loan and made the house at Chooralmala," said Shivamma, getting ready to leave the camp. "Her Sanjayanam is tomorrow at Thirunelly," she said on Friday, referring to the Hindu ritual of immersing the ashes.
The night
On July 29, residents of Poonchirimattom, a hamlet on the upper reaches of Mundakkai, called in TV reporters to broadcast the overflowing of the stream and the imminent collapse of the bridge there. "The reporters arrived at 3.30 pm and several channels went live," said Prasanna Kumar (50), a welder, who was born in Poonchirimattom.
Several families moved to safer places. "But most of us who called in the reporters thought it would be a small landslide and decided to stay put," said Prasanna Kumar, now in a relief camp at St Joseph UP School at Meppadi.
To be sure, the Hume Centre for Ecology & Wildlife Biology, a research centre at Kalpetta, had set a threshold value of 600 mm of rain in 48 hours for the area after which a landslide is imminent. In the 48 hours till July 29, the place received 400 mm of rain and there was no sign of letting up. The centre issued the warning. The district administration ignored it. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan later said that the region received 572 mm of rainfall in 48 hours.
Around 1 am on July 30, Prasanna Kumar and his wife Premalatha (44) heard the first blast. A rocky hill at Vellarimala gave away, bringing down tonnes of boulders, dirt and water. Around 50 residents of Poonchirimattom rushed to the road to see what had happened. "As soon as we realised it was a landslide, we rushed home, took our packets and hit the road again," said Prasanna, referring to the plastic bags in which people living in landslide and flood-prone areas keep their certificates and documents.
He also called Joyson, a tourist guide at Chooralmala, to alert him of the landslide. But he was late. "Joyson's house was filled with dirt and the family managed to climb on top of the terrace," he said. Two other families were also on his terrace.
In another 30 minutes, there was a bigger blast and people at Poonchirimattom rushed to take cover under another hill. "We were 50 of them. We could see the debris flying before our eyes, 20 metres away. It was like a train but 150 ft high, taking with it houses and vehicles," said Prasanna Kumar. He called his friend Joyson again. "He told me a huge concrete slab of another house hit his house and formed a protective wall. The water bouncing off the slab," he said. They were alive.
We could see the debris flying before our eyes, 20 metres away. It was like a train but 150 ft high, taking with it houses and vehicles
Prasanna Kumar, a survivor
The third landslide sealed the fate of the two hamlets -- Mundakkai and Chooralmala. In the 4km stretch between Vellarimalla and Chooralmala, 354 houses were either razed or made uninhabitable. Almost all residents were affected.
Mundakkai was a bustling marketplace on the other side of the Chooralmala River. It had a grocery shop "selling everything from pencils to dried fish", a footwear shop, a barber shop, a lower primary school, an eatery, a lodge, a post office, a mosque and church, standing side by side, and several smaller shops.
Today, there is no evidence of the shops or the post office. The mosque at 150 ft above the stream is filled with silt and destroyed; the madrasa teacher Shihab Faizy was killed.
Aboobacker P (70), who ran the super grocery store, barely managed to escape with his wife Khadija and daughter Rasheeda. "We managed to climb a safe hill in the night. But when I looked behind, I saw my shop and house disappearing before my eyes," he said. But he was numbed when he saw his sister Naseema and her two children walking behind him being washed away. He later came to know he lost his second sister and nephew too to the landslide.
Several members of the three families that owned the Forest Mount resort also died. They had taken refuge in the two-storey building. Only Kooliyoden Ali's father and his 15-year-old son escaped. His daughter died. The son was found in neck-deep dirt inside the house, unable to utter anything. Ali's brother Kooliyoden Samsu's son died but his 10-year-old daughter was found on top of the water tank, in semi-conscious state.
Sahira Banu, an estate worker, who lived in a lane quarters with five houses, said she was knocked awake when a log hit her head around 1 am. There was blood and dirt in her mouth and ears. By then her husband Siraj A (45) was neck deep in dirt. She raised an alarm, and her relatives living in the fifth house on the lane came to her rescue. They pulled her out. But when they returned for Siraj, he was gone.
A slab fell on Siraj's mother Fathima (75) but the relatives managed to pull her out. Her right leg is fractured. Sahira Banu's mother Khadija (63), who lived in Poochirimattom, left her home after the TV aired the alert, and decided to stay with her daughter. She escaped. Of the 13 members of the family in the quarters, only Siraj died. Sahira underwent head surgery at Dr Moopen's Medical College.
The Escape
Gauri, the resident of Chooralmala, said her neighbours started coming to her house one by one after the first landslide. Yashoda, who sold her house at Chooralmala but bought it back again, was the first to arrive. She was covered in dirt," said Gauri. She cleaned her up and gave some of her clothes.
Her neighbour Rajamma and her two grandsons were trapped under a jeep. Gauri's grandsons Vishnu, an artist, and Mahesh and neighbour Jayan rushed to pull her out. "They were lifting the jeep to pull the kids and Rajamma out when they heard the second explosion," she said.
The three fled to their houses but when they looked back, the jeep was not there. Chooralmala was hit with meteor-like boulders, flattening the houses and vehicles.
Gauri said they realised houses were not safe and decided to hit the forest nearby. In the morning, a herd of elephants triggered panic in the village. "But during the landslide, we were not scared of elephants," she said.
During the landslide, we were not scared of elephants
Gauri, who sought refuge in an elephant-infested forest area
Her grandson Vinay, a nursing assistant, was recuperating in her house after fracturing his kneecap. He dragged and rolled himself through the forest. "We were crying and screaming for help. Then we saw a few men from another village returning after chasing away the elephants," said Gauri. "They took us to safety."
Prasanna Kumar said the survivors of Poonchirimattom walked in the rain through the forest and behind the hill at Vellarimala, where the landslide originated, to find a safe place in the night.
Rose Diana (36) lived with her two sons, aged 8 and 11, in a shanty at Saipukunnu in Nellimunda near Chooramala. The unplastered two-bedroom house had an asbestos roof. The house sits on the fringe of a forest. "I felt the ground under me shaking in the night. I woke up my kids, not knowing what to do," she said. Her husband Felix Rajesh (42) is a vegetable vendor in Kozhikode.
The laterite embankment around her house had started to collapse and the road leading to her house was flooding up. "I prayed and I cried," she said. Her WhatsApp groups started getting messages of the landslides. At the first light of dawn around 5 am, she took her kids and the plastic bag with certificates and took the forested area behind the house to go to her neighbour's place. There were pugmarks of leopards, footprints of elephants and hoof marks of wild boars, she said. "The steep climb was slippery. A misstep and we will fall into the swollen stream down," she said. But the fear of the flood gave her the courage to make the trek.
After reaching safety, she immediately sent her sons to Kozhikode and signed up as a volunteer at the St Joseph school relief camp. "I don't want to go back to my house," said Diana.
Gauri was surer: "I am not going back to my house even if it is standing there. I have seen many landslides. But this time, the entire mountains have come down," she said.
