Himachal cloudburst: Nature’s fury left only two in this family of 11
With rescue operations underway, Kedarta has little hope of finding his kin alive but wishes their bodies could be retrieved so he could perform the last rites.
Rescue operation underway following a cloudburst in Shimla district’s Rampur area on Saturday. PTI Ashok Kumar Kedarta (42) and his 6-year-old step-nephew Monu are the only survivors of an 11-member family that lost 9 members following the cloudburst in Samej Khad, Himachal Pradesh.
Their houses were also washed away along with many other structures in the village.
As the rescue operation continues, Kedarta has little hope of finding his kin alive but wishes their bodies could be retrieved so he could perform the last rites.
“There is no trace of my wife Anita Devi (38) my two children – Mukesh (19) and Yogpriya (11) – my brother Surat Ram, who is Monu’s grandfather, his wife Santosh Kumari (50) his son Neera Kedarta, Monu’s father, and his elder brother Sonu.
All those who were present in the house on the fateful Wednesday night are not with us anymore. And those who were not there are standing before you,” Kedarta told The Indian Express.
“I don’t know what to say. I left my house, leaving behind my wife and two children in our single-story house to meet a relative who lives at a higher altitude location on Wednesday. I boarded a local bus around 5:30 pm. Around 1 am, I got a call from a relative informing me about the incident. When I returned, everything was ruined. My step-nephew Monu, along with his sister and mother Priti, was at their maternal home in a nearby village.”
Mukesh and Yogpriya were students at Government Senior Secondary School Samej. They are among the 33 missing people in Shimla.
Rajesh Kumar Kedarta, who also lost four relatives in the cloudburst, said, “At least four houses in the village Kanradar, which were washed away, belonged to Kedarta family members. Ashok, who lost his wife and two children, and little Monu are the only two members in their immediate family. A guest, Ved Raju, who came to visit Surat Ram is also missing.”
At some distance, a wailing Chint Devi (70) was being consoled by the local women. Champo Devi, one of those consoling Chint Devi, said, “Chint Devi lost all her distant relatives from her husband’s side in the tragedy. Though she had a house in the village Kanradar, which was washed away in the aftermath of the cloudburst, she has been residing in the nearby sub-town Jhakri with her son, who is a government employee there.”
In the 72 hours of rescue operations, no one has been found as yet.
SP (Shimla) Sanjeev Gandhi said, “Though mutilated body parts were recovered from a location, it cannot be said with certainty that the parts belong to any of the missing people. Efforts are ongoing to trace the missing people.”
In the five cloudbursts – three in Kullu and one each in Mandi and Shimla – at least 50 people have gone missing. Out of the 50 people, eight bodies of missing persons were found in Kullu and Mandi.
A trained Labrador from the 20 Army Dog Unit in Lucknow, a dozen high-resolution drones, and JCB machines moving boulders and stones to change the course of water flow in the flooded Samej Khad are among the resources and methods deployed as rescuers race against the time looking for 33 people still missing in the area that falls in Rampur subdivision of Shimla.
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