CHOORALMALA: Kumaran, Ashokan and Khalid, residents of Chooralmala and adjacent places, haven’t left the landslide-hit area since the disaster. Having lost their relatives and friends in the landslide, they ask how they can leave the place when their dear ones are yet to be found. They lost their houses and properties and the government has asked them to move to relief camps or relatives’ houses.
However, Kumaran, Ashokan and Khalid are not willing to leave their hometown. Not yet anyway. Staying put, and sleeping on the pavement in front of shops, they are awaiting information on their friends and relatives.
“On Monday night, everyone, including myself, was running from this place to save their lives,” said Ashokan. “However, we returned to Chooralmala the next day. Seeing our town like this hurts.
We cannot leave this place that has provided us with everything. We cannot leave our friends here.” An autorickshaw driver, Ashokan’s vehicle was damaged in the landslide.
Kumaran lost most of his relatives to the disaster. “I lost my brother-in-law and other relatives. This is the place where we were born and raised.
The people with whom we grew up are now missing. How can we move to a relative’s house and sleep peacefully? So, we are staying here and watching the search operations with the hope that one day we will find our friends too,” he said. Khalid, belonging to a village nearby, too is in Chooralmala to check if the rescue teams have found his missing friends.
“I lost three of my friends. I searched to see if they were in the relief camps. But they are not there.
I have been coming to Chooralmala daily for the past six days to see if they have been found,” he said. Chooralmala was beautiful, he said. “Do you know how beautiful this village was? There was everything we needed.
Nature, water, weather, everything was good. Now it has all been washed off,” he lamented. Ashokan also blamed the government and the local authorities for not alerting the residents.
“There was rain on Monday. The local authorities should have at least alerted them so they could move to another place,” he said..
