Every single day of his homecoming has always been an event for Jinosh Jayan, the 42-year-old resident of Chooralmala; a junior commissioned officer from 321 Medium Regimen. He would catch up with his friends, go fishing, attend family reunions and loll around the valleys and premises of Chooralamala school; days never seemed enough and his leave would be over in no time.
This time was as eventful; but in a soul-shattering manner. On July 30, on duty in Aurangabad, he woke up to a flurry of messages on the Whatsapp group of his friends about a major landslide. He made his first call to his parents; Jayadevan and Shylaja at Chooralmala.
They had run uphill to a safe spot by then. He asked them to move to his house at Kalpetta. They waited for a long time and somehow managed to reach Kalpetta. By that time Jinosh would know that his three close relatives had gone missing. He applied for 15 days leave. When he reached Chooralmala, two bodies were found and identified. He attended the funeral.
In his village, search operations were underway. He was in mourning, his family was clueless about one family member who had gone missing. Jinosh walked up to an Army official and introduced himself. In a place flattened beyond recognition, an Army man who was a local resident and who had expertise in land survey was volunteering to help.
Jinosh was trained in land survey and records during his tenure with Army and he had experience working on area detection and advanced surveying for operational purposes. Never would he have thought that his maps would prove crucial in his homeland. More than anything, he knew the place like the back of his hand.
With no equipment at his disposal, Jinosh made hand-drawn maps, banking on his memory of the village. He could establish the trigger points, the path of the slide and zones of impact; information that was priceless in a badly ravaged land. These maps were then enhanced, digitised and acted as guiding points for search.
Even something that was common knowledge for a local resident like Jinosh was passed on without losing details; like the course of Suchipara waterfalls; Within a 500-metre distance, it plunges from three different heights; 110 ft, 50 ft and 400 ft; this info meant that possible areas where bodies could have ended up could be demarcated.
“We started off with hand-drawn maps, later equipments arrived and we made detailed maps. I know the place so it was easier for me. We could prioritise areas of search once we established the points of impact. We were able to recover many bodies from downstream and from the valley,” said Jinosh. He studied till class 10 at Chooralmala school which has been badly damaged during the landslide. He was accompanied by his brother Jithil Jayan, who is with the NDRF and his cousin Praveen Prakash of Madras Engineer Group (MEG) in the search operations.
His local knowledge proved invaluable as he assisted them in navigating the challenging terrain. Drawing on his expertise as a surveyor, Subedar Jinosh created hand-drawn maps that greatly aided the rescue teams in their operations. Jinosh was honoured by the Additional Director General of Police Ajith Kumar and Inspector General MR Sethu Raman for his exceptional contributions during this challenging period on Tuesday, a release issued by the PRO Defence Kochi said.
