PUTHUMALA: Basheer T C, a tea estate labourer, is yet to recover from the trauma of the landslide at Puthumala. “I ran for life seeing the slush and boulders hurtling down towards the village. Many were engulfed by the mud in front of my eyes,” he said at the relief camp at Government High School, Meppadi.
For Basheer and many others, Bakrid is shrouded with sorrow. “Our near and dear are dead,” he said. Safeer, son of Hamza Muthrathodi, 62, who is missing, broke down before Sub Collector N S K Umesh on Sunday.
“My father is alive deep beneath the debris. I have told this to the authorities. Nobody cares. It has been four days now,” he said amidst tears.
For Shaukath and his wife Muneera, who work in a canteen, it is a sorrowful Bakrid as the landslide claimed the life of their four-year-old son Mohammed Mishab. Mishab slipped off their hands and he was swept away in the mudflow. He was born after a ten-year wait, said a relative.