GUWAHATI: It must have been 1.30 am on June 30 when the heavens fell and unleashed hell on Ramen Phukan.
He was sleeping at one moment and then, found himself buried under tonnes of wet earth and rocks. He is one of the 18 survivors of the devastating landslide in Manipur’s Noney district.
The survivors include five from Assam. They were brought to Guwahati in a flight on Monday. Ramen, a mason, recounted the horror.
“I almost got buried. I got trapped between two rocks – one above and another behind. I could somehow stick my right hand out of the debris. I thought I would die and started praying to God. And then by using full force, I somehow managed to partially lift my body. It was dark and raining,” Ramen recalled.
He said on hearing him yelling for life, his friend Gopal Phukan arrived, carrying a stump-like object. Ramen held onto it as he was being lifted. Eventually, he came out of the debris and went to a safer place near a plantain tree.
“I could hear some voices coming from the side of the river (Ijai). I couldn’t see the persons but they were possibly stuck in the river. I shouted at them saying if you want to stay alive, come to me. My brother Maniram and nephew Maheshwar soon arrived,” Ramen said.
As moments passed by, he said the voices at the river fell silent. The debris had blocked the river and the level of water was fast rising, he said.
“Gopal Phukan saved my life but unfortunately, he is among the dead,” Ramen, who fractured his left hand, said sobbing.
He said he was stuck there for the next three to four hours until being rescued by the villagers at dawn.
“They put me into a sack and carried me uphill. I will remain thankful to them for the rest of my life,” Ramen said.
Prahlad Basumatary, another survivor, said the landslide had flung him a long distance down.
“Twenty-three of us, including a supervisor, were in the room. We went to bed after eating dinner and watching movies etc,” Prahlad said.
He said he sustained injuries in one leg and was rescued by the villagers. Assam minister Pijush Hazarika had brought the survivors to Guwahati.
“Twenty-six people from Assam were there. Five survived, the bodies of nine were recovered and 12 are missing. The missing persons include a railway engineer,” Hazarika told journalists.
He said the five survivors were Ramen Phukan, Maniram Phukan, Maheshwar Phukan, Jon Basumatary and Prahlad Basumatary. Of the 26 people from Assam, 21 are from Morigaon district.
Dipankar Bordoloi, who is the chief of Khustoli Khuragusaibari village in Morigaon, said 18 of the people are from his village while three are from an adjoining village.
“Most people in our areas are farmers. After sowing paddy, a lot of them go to different places to eke out a living,” Bordoloi said.
Till Monday, the bodies of 45 victims, including Territorial Army personnel, were retrieved. The personnel were deployed there for the protection of under-construction railway line from Jiribam to Imphal.
The Manipur government announced ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh each for the dead and Rs 50,000 each for the injured.