Wayanad landslide | Hope and desperation as families wait for kith and kin

Tragic landslides in Wayanad leave families searching for missing loved ones at a crowded health centre.

A pall of gloom descended on the Community Health Centre at Meppadi on Tuesday where the mortal remains of the victims of the landslides in Chooralmala in Wayanad were kept.

At the relatively small and congested health centre, there were harrowing scenes as relatives waited for news of the missing and injured. People were seen desperately searching for their loved ones amidst bodies kept in a row. Parents were seen searching for their children, wives were looking for their husbands and children, and the elderly searching for their grandchildren.

Visibly distraught, Shahana cries as she recalls her husband Muneer waking her up around 2 p.m on Tuesday after a flash flood entered their small house on the banks of the Iruvazhinji river. Soon, she found herself amidst the neighbours, who were frantically searching for their kin in the dead of the night. Muneer carried his bedridden mother on his shoulder to safety, along with Shahana and their two children.

After dropping them at his friend’s house, Muneer returned to help the distraught neighbours. Though she waited for him the whole night, Muneer did not return. Now, she is looking for him at the health centre.

As bodies reach the health centre in ambulances, people hope and pray that they be spared the sight of their kin in the lot. Appu, an 80-year-old man, is waiting for his granddaughter Neelima. He lost her while trying to escape the flash flood.

Thirteen-year-old Shinto is waiting for his mother, Meena. Meena had left him at a relative’s house, where the mother, his father and the boy took refuge. She had told him that she would return soon after collecting some essential documents kept in their three-room home down the hill. However, the mother did not return.

When the rain entered the house of Mathew around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, he awoke the three members of the family. When we heard the emergency call of our neighbours we understood the gravity of the situation. At once we heard a thundering sound and flash flood approaching us, and ran to safety holding each other’s hands. Selvan and his wife, Rani, workers of nearby estate, went missing while they were preparing to shift to a nearby house, Mr. Mathew said of his neighbours.