IDUKKI: “Around 3am, when everyone was in deep sleep, I heard a loud noise. Everything happened in the fraction of a second,” recalled Ashokan N S, a resident of Sangamam near Kudayathoor, who first realised that a landslide had struck the region. He quickly alerted others and initiated relief activities, unaware at the time that five people would lose their lives.
“It was raining heavily, and the intensity increased by midnight,” he said.Ashokan and his family are settlers in Sangamam, a residential area located on a hill slope. They have been living there for more than 50 years. But the local residents have never witnessed any such incident before.
“The downpour on Sunday night was so heavy that I couldn’t sleep calmly. When I came out after hearing the loud sound, muddy water was gushing through the streams on either side of my house. Soon I rang up my brother Rajesh who lives close to Kochettan’s (Soman) house on the upper slope and inquired whether they were safe, and asked him to look at neighbouring houses,” he said.
Rajesh told him Soman’s house was completely buried under the debris and that he could not see anyone there. Soon he informed other residents and sought help from the fire and rescue services.
“Carrying out relief work became impossible for the local residents due to darkness and mud flow. Rescue workers reached the spot by 4am and families living near the landslide site were shifted immediately,” Ashokan said.
Above Ashokan’s, and his neighbour’s, house is a huge mud ridge. The water and debris rushing down from the top of the hill changed course due to the ridge and flowed into the streams on either side of his house, and as many as 40 families settled in Sangamam and Maliyekkal colony escaped.
“Otherwise, it would have turned into a huge tragedy,” he said.According to initial estimates by the revenue department, Soman’s house lay buried under the debris while eight other houses suffered partial damage. A total of 11 families have been shifted to the relief camp opened at the Government New LP School, Kudayathoor.