Wayanad girl’s story on nature’s fury turns real: Her father among dead

Today, Chooralmala has been flattened by massive landslides that claimed hundreds of lives — including Laya’s father Lenin. The GVHSS Vellarmala lost 32 of its 497 students. Two students have lost their parents and siblings.

The official death toll in the twin Wayanad landslides currently stands at 189, with the Kerala government confirming on Thursday that “all those who are alive” at the landslide-hit villages have been rescued. Around 160-odd people are still missing.

The school at Chooralamal is now badly damaged, with the river flowing nearby washing into its vast grounds and classrooms and damaging its infrastructure.

At the village, the school headmaster, V Unnikrishnan, and his colleagues in the teaching staff feel they had a narrow escape.

“We five teachers are staying in rented quarters at Chooralmala, with a steep hill behind it. A week ago, it was raining heavily and we decided to stay the night at the school fearing a landslide. But we returned home last Friday. The landslide did not happen behind our quarters as we feared. Instead, it came through the river and hit the school. If we had been there, we would have perished,” he told The Indian Express.

A teacher for 18 years now, Unnikrishnan remembers the village as a lively, friendly and welcoming place that mostly comprised workers employed at the local cardamom and tea plantations. It was with them that Unnikrishnan, who’s originally from Alappuzha district, and his colleagues socialised.

“Over the years, many youths in the village got educated and built careers beyond the plantations. Their world was washed away in a few seconds that night,” he says.

Unnikrishnan and his colleagues now face the challenging task of helping their students get back to normalcy. A Class 12 student is still missing, Rejin, a teacher at GVHSS, said.

“Alternate arrangements have to be made for the students. Many are in shock over the loss of their friends,’’ he said.

At Mundakkai, teachers at a government lower primary school have found that 11 of its students are missing.

With the village being completely cut off following the rain and landslide, contact with it has so far been difficult. According to school headmistress Mercy Thomas, teachers have been frantically trying to track down students and their families.

“They (the missing students) are all from the village, which is no more. I don’t know the condition of the school building. So far, we haven’t been able to go near the village because there’s no bridge to reach it,” she said.

Apart from the confirmed deaths, rescue workers have fished out 92 body parts, mainly from the Chaliyar river in Malappuram’s Nilambur region. As many as 252 post-mortems, including of the body parts, have been conducted, officials said.

Forty-four children are missing from two schools in the region —Mundakkai’s government lower primary school and Chooralmala’s GVHSS, including in its higher secondary section.

After a review meeting at Kalpetta in Wayanad, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the media that “all those who are alive have been saved in the last three days”.

“It is assumed that nobody is left to be saved in the villages of Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Attamala. Rescue workers are looking into whether anyone got stranded individually. What is left is to retrieve bodies from the area,” he said.

Quoting Revenue officials, Vijayan also said 348 buildings have been damaged in the landslide.

A protocol is ready to cremate/bury the unidentified bodies. As more freezers are required for storing them, the Karnataka government has expressed readiness to send in what’s required.

Vijayan also visited Chooralmala, where the Army constructed a Bailey bridge to reach Mundakkai village, where scores of bodies are yet to be recovered.