Kalpetta: After the fateful landslides on July 30, several dead bodies and parts of bodies were taken to the Community Health Centre at Meppadi, and for a whole week, they kept arriving.
Tuesday (August 6) was a day of respite for the more than 50 volunteers, nursing staff and cleaning workers at the Centre. On the day, no bodies were recovered in the searches at the landslide-hit zones in Mundakkai and Chooralmala; two bodies were recovered from searches conducted in streams and River Chaliyar.
These volunteers, comprising eight women, hailing from various parts of the state have emerged as the bearers of the light of humanity. They engaged in washing the bodies and registering identification marks and objects including chains, bangles, nail polish, earrings, wedding rings, etc which helped the police as well as relatives in identifying the victims.
At the Community Hall, another group of volunteers helped the nursing staff and doctors in preparing the bodies to be handed over to the relatives or to be shifted to the morgue or for a mass burial.
Subash Mangalath from Kannur and Al Aneesh N F from Thiruvananthapuram have been serving at the body dispatch unit for the last six days. Aneesh, a member of AIYF, is a leader of the volunteers. "We handed over as many as 179 dead bodies on a single day. There are volunteers from almost all districts here,” Aneesh told Onmanorama.
“All of us were very tired and today is almost a day of rest for us," said Mangalath. The native of Kannur said that though he was part of several other missions, this was entirely different, and the most harrowing one.
Iqbal, another volunteer at the cleaning unit, said: “During the last two days most of the bodies were damaged entirely. They were maggot-infested and emitted a foul smell.”
On Monday, the rescuers had sent three bodies and three more mangled body parts to the Centre. “Only one dead body was identified,” Iqbal said. “We considered each part of a body as a body itself; washed it, cleaned it and made note of identification marks and objects before passing it to the display hall.”
Their selfless service has given these volunteers sleepless nights. Many of the youngsters, and at times most of them, were also unable to take food. But it was the round-the-clock service of these humble souls that ensured timely inquest, post-mortem and dispatch of the countless dead bodies and body parts of the landslide victims.
