KOCHI: On July 30, the state woke up to a tragic news. Multiple landslides had washed away villages in Wayanad. The scenes were tough to watch, the cries were heart-rending, the news was downright dark.
Yet there was no element of surprise. Many were probably reminded of the past monsoons when Kerala witnessed similar events of varying proportions. TNIE takes a trip down that horrifying memory lane of people who remain on the edges of ecological damage.
It was November 9, 2001, around 8.30pm. A house full of people was preparing to celebrate a wedding the next day.
Relatives who had arrived from Kanjirappally were settling into the merriment. The rain, or torrents of it, had not dampened their excitement. It was then the land came crashing down from the hills that lined the property and with it their hopes and their lives.
Only C D Thomas and a relative survived from the spot at Poochumukku by the hillslide. He now seems reluctant to talk about it. “I lost everyone — my wife, my three children, my grandchildren.
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He took time to recoup from the loss. “I spent six to seven months in hospital nursing a back injury after being stuck under rubble. I came back to an empty house.
My old parents came here to take care of me.” After recovering, Thomas picked up the pieces of life that were strewn around the rubble of his home and began life again. “What is the use of talking of that day?” he says, recalling the sudden gush of mud, stone and water.
Soon after, about six to seven families whose property was lost in the incident were relocated to a colony where they were given five cents each. The next of kin of those who lost their lives were given Rs 2 lakh as compensation. Twenty three years hence, the locals still remember Amboori’s sorrow, says Thomas, now the vice-president of the panchayat.
In August 2019, the Chaliyar River flew into a rage, eating up its own banks and wreaking havoc in the region. Puthumala was a plantation village near Meppadi, 20km away from Kalpetta and located 1,230m above mean sea level. The state saw several landslips and floods in the heavy rain of 2019, and the massive landslide at the Puthumala village saw water gushing from the mountain bringing down 20 hectares of land and claiming 17 lives.
Rainfall data in the area showed that just 24 hours before the landslide, Puthumala received around 500mm of intense rain. The landslide here started small but snowballed into a catastrophe because of the soil structure in the lower regions and the torrential rainwater it absorbed. Nearly 100 acres of tea plantation washed away that day destroying the village’s primary livelihood.
Within two days, another landslide hit, this time at Kavalappara. The landslide at Kavalappara occurred just days after the one at Puthumala. Both the areas are on either side of the Western Ghats bordering the Nilgiris district.
At Soochipara in Wayanad, Sumod Navoriparambath is now part of the rescue team that helps find bodies washed away from Chooralmala — bodies that may not have anyone coming to claim them. “I know how it feels. My parents’ bodies were found seven days after the landslide hit our locality at Kavalappara — on August 8, 2019.
I was in Bengaluru for work and hence escaped. My wife and kids had gone to her home and my brother was stranded on the other side of the Chaliyar river. Hence, they survived.
” But his father Sukumaran and mother Radha went missing along with many in the area. “We never thought it was a disaster-prone area. My father had lived there since his birth and the place was our home.
Suddenly, nature played villain. 59 people lost everything on that day, at around 8pm,” Sumod says. The survivors were given land some 4kms away, where Sumod and the other 24 families have now built new homes.
“I still have the house I was constructing at Kavalappara near the landslide site. But it remains untouched. It is now deemed an ecologically fragile area and no one lives there.
Wild elephants come down from the forests now. Even Chooralmala was like our place, deemed fit to live. But see what has happened to it,” he exclaims.
Sumod is joined by people from the 24 families on the Chooralmala rescue mission. “We have been there from day one. Because we know the pain.
We certainly do know what it is like to search for a loved one, to realise we have lost them forever,” he says. On August 6, 2020, horror rained over Kanan Devan Hill Plantation (KDHP) estate lanes at Pettimudi, a place known as a traveller’s paradise. The living quarters for workers of the plantations were home to Murugesan Murugan for generations.
That fateful night, he and his wife Murugeswari had retired early to bed at around 9pm. Their son Ganesh, a fresh BBA graduate, was watching a movie. His daughter was away in Madurai stranded in a hostel during the lockdown phase.
“Around 10pm, my wife woke me up to the whirring sound of a helicopter. Soon, the walls of the apartment came crashing down and roaring waters engulfed our room. We could hardly move and our son managed to wriggle out.
We sent him away with prayers and the plea that he should take care of our daughter,” Murugesan recalls. Ganesh perched himself on a rock some distance away but couldn’t turn his mind away from the cries of his parents. He came back and found them alive and helped them out.
“Soon, help came as some nearby families came our way. They told us that several lives were lost in the place where we lived,” Murugesan says. Two days later, the roads cleared and we were taken to hospital.
“Even now, I have to wear a belt on my waist. My wife too has to nurse her broken arm from time to time.” His family got no proper compensation from either the Kerala government (who claimed the solatium was used for his treatment) or from the Tamil Nadu government (who says Murugesan is not on the survivors’ list).
However, they were given 5 cents of land 30km away from Munnar where the company built them a house. “I sold my wife’s wedding chain and got a jeep. Now, we operate that on a rental basis.
My wife still works in the estate,” Murugesan says. The Pettimudi landslide claimed 60 lives — as per the official count, 66 lives were lost. But Murugesan claims 70 people, including children, were killed from his locality.
Bodies of about four people said to be trapped under the debris have not been found yet. Tuesday, on the fourth anniversary of the Pettimudi incident, survivors and local people gathered at the memorial to commemorate the departed. “Not many survivors are around anymore.
Many have left the place. Some went back to Tamil Nadu. I too leave the place when it rains hard.
It sends shrills down my spine. And the visuals of Wayanad, bring back horrendous memories,” says Murugesan. It was the Covid times, and another disaster struck in the regions stretching over Kokkayar in Idukki and Koottickal in Kottayam in October 2021.
Soumya Sudheesh’s family was in Koottickal, a village home to over 10,000 families. “I have always been fond of the place. I grew up in the beautiful surroundings by the river and never could imagine it to be the scene of a landslide,” she says.
Her family used to run a tea shop and a grocery store. “The landslide hit around noon. My mother was just about to go home from the shop when it grounded the shop.
She lost her life there. My father was at home, part of which was levelled. He was saved but he is still in shock,” she says.
About 21 people lost their lives and 173 houses were washed away that day. Ambika Radhamani’s family was one among those who were saved but catastrophe struck in a different way. “My mother, father and younger brother passed away after the incident.
The house is now abandoned,” she says. Soumya too says she never goes to that spot which claimed her mother. “It remains there as the home that once was.
” The landslides were part of the many reported from parts of Kottayam. An ex gratia of Rs4 lakh was announced for the families of those killed. As Kerala mourns Wayanad landslide victims, the prayer of those who went through the horror is common: Let no one else go through this.
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