A favourite stop-over for tourists who want to snack up and quickly snap some memories back home, the scenic waterfall was a perfect backdrop. After two landslides on Monday, the second one which caused several deaths, the spot suddenly seems to have lost its serenity. The only thing that remained was horror.
Fear was writ large on the faces that milled around the rescue workers. Santha, who makes a living by vending mangoes to the tourists, said she ran two kilometers to her home, after witnessing the landslide.
“There were around 10 vehicles and most of the people were standing on the road watching the locals clearing the mud from the first landslide. We heard a loud noise and suddenly mud, stones and water fell on the road at high speed. Five cars were swept away in the landslip. I was lucky to be alive. If it struck just five meters on other side of the waterfall, I would have been dead,” she said.
Joseph, who runs a tea shop, said he could not contact his friends after the landslide. “The number of tourists had come down considerably, due to heavy rains, over the last one week. If it had happened on a weekend more people would have died. We think there are around 30 people trapped under the mud, including five shop keepers,” he said.