IDUKKI: For Sandhya, grief returned with brutal force on Saturday night. Barely a year after she lost her teenage son to cancer, Sandhya was dealt another blow – the death of her husband in the landslip that buried their house in Koompanpara.
Relatives said the couple had started coping with the grief of losing their son just recently. “They were slowly learning to live again. However, fate has been merciless to them,” said a neighbour. Biju, a daily-wage labourer, and Sandhya, who worked temporarily with the Adimali Milma Society, were known for their quiet determination.
“They built that house on 15 cents of land about 10 years ago,” said Biju’s father. “Trouble began only when the highway cutting started behind the colony,” he said.
The couple’s daughter, a nursing student in Kottayam, was away when disaster struck. The incident has plunged the small hill village of Koompanpara in deep mourning, grieving for a family that suffered two immense losses within a year.