‘Found it difficult to believe I was alive’: 26 pilgrims rescued from flash flood in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar

The group of pilgrims, including 10 women, had their hearts in their mouths as a luxury bus was swept off a causeway across a flooded Maleshri river near coastal Koliyak village, some 24 km southeast of Bhavnagar, at around 7 pm on Thursday. The pilgrims were on their way to Somnath after having darshan at Nishkalank Mahadev, a shrine of Lord Shiva at the village.

Officers of the Bhavnagar district administration had launched a rescue operation, sending a team of local divers and firefighters on board a dumper truck at around 8.30 pm — but it got stuck as well. “The rescuers broke open the bus windows and shifted the pilgrims onto the truck. However, in the meantime, the flow and current of the floodwaters increased as it kept raining heavily and the driver of the dumper was no longer able to control the vehicle. Thus, the truck was also stuck on the flooded causeway,” RK Mehta, district collector of Bhavnagar, told The Indian Express.

Bhavanagar experienced very heavy rainfall. Bhavnagar taluka (block) was lashed by 95 mm of rain for 24 hours, ending at 6 am on Friday. During the same period, neighbouring Ghogha (151 mm), Sihor (94 mm), Palitana (110 mm), and Vallabhipur (107 mm) also reported very heavy rainfall, swelling local rivers and streams.

The collector said that Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and the additional chief secretary of the revenue department, Jayanti Ravi, were updated about the situation. “Rescuing the pilgrims by using helicopters was not feasible as it was night and the causeway was lined by an 11-kv power transmission line,” Mehta further said.

In the meantime, a team of NDRF arrived from Rajkot and joined the rescue operation. “However, the NDRF team also assessed the current of the floodwaters as too strong for launching a boat to rescue the pilgrims. Rescuing the pilgrims with the help was also not safe as most of the pilgrims were senior citizens and scarred due to their precarious situation,” the collector further said, adding, “The causeway is just 500 metres upstream the mouth of the river in the Gulf of Khambhat and since there was a high tide, the flood in the river became worse.”

At 12.40 am on Friday, “low tide began”. “We sent a heavier truck at around 1.30 am. Rescuers shifted the stranded pilgrims from the stuck dumper to the heavier truck with the help of a ladder and eventually rescued them at around 3 am,” the collector said.

The group of pilgrims were on a 10-day-long tour of Rajasthan and Gujarat, said Thangam, a Delhi-based tour-operator who hails from Tamil Nadu and who had arranged the tour, to The Indian Express. He said that the pilgrims had boarded a train from Chennai on September 19 and reached Jaipur two days later. From there, they boarded the luxury bus of Balaji Travels, Thangam’s tour and travel agency run by Thangam and the tour operator himself also joined them with a bus driver and conductor.

“It was raining lightly when the pilgrims boarded the bus at Koliyak. Around four kilometres away, we encountered the causeway. Locals warned us that it would be risky to try to cross the flooded causeway. But the bus driver ran the risk as not much water was flowing on the causeway. But when we reached the halfway point, a huge wave swept the bus off the causeway,” 57-year-old Thangam told The Indian Express, adding he had not seen such flash floods in his life.

“I thought we all were going to die… it was dark at night also. I became numb. When they rescued me and brought to safety, I found it difficult to believe that I was alive,” Savikamasundari (49), one of the pilgrims, told The Indian Express over phone after pilgrims were shifted to Patel Boarding, a community hall in Bhavnagar city at 6 am on Friday.

Savikamasundari is a native of Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu and runs a play school.

Rajamanickem (52), a farmer from Mallapuram in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu also expressed similar feelings. “We, the group of 26 family members and friends, had set out from Chennai with high hopes of seeing Rajasthan and Gujarat for the first time in our lives. We had a good five days until we were trapped in the flash food of the type I have never seen in my life. Most members of the group are elderly and especially women were scared,” he said.

“I thank the Gujarat government and Jayati Ravi for saving our lives. Our plan was to go to Somnath and Dwarka before boarding a train from Ahmedabad for the return journey. But now, we want to go back home as soon as possible,” Rajamanickem said.

Baldev Beldar, mamlatdar of Bhavnagar Rural taluka, said that all the pilgrims were given medical aid on the spot before being shifted to Patel Boarding, a community hall in Bhavnagar city at 6 am on Friday. “We are arranging for their food and other needs. Their luggage is still in the stranded bus. Once water recedes, we will try to salvage the luggage and the bus,” Beldar said.