Trapped in landslide as a baby for 8 hours, a lesson on calamities for Rudra 10 years on

Extraordinarily enough, one of those eight survivors is all set to learn about natural disasters, their management, causes and mitigation efforts with his classmates. Now a 10-year-old with a shy, disarming smile, Rudra Lembhe was just three months old when his mother and he were rescued eight hours after they got buried alive in a landslide on July 30, 2014, barely one kilometre from his school.

Rudra Lembhe, who was 3 months old at the time of the incident, was trapped inside his house after it caved in.

Christened ‘Miracle Baby’, Rudra is still not used to strangers asking him about his “experience”. All questions on July 30, 2014, are met with a standard answer from the reserved boy: “I don’t remember anything”.

On that rainy morning a decade ago, Malin village, located in the foothills of the Sahyadri mountain range, disappeared in minutes as the hills came down in a massive landslide, killing 151 people. The Indian Express is running a special series titled ‘10 years of Malin Tragedy’, focussing on all aspects of the decade gone by — from rescue stories and rehabilitation of survivors to resilience of the human spirit.

The chapter, titled ‘Malin: A tragedy’, was added to the Class 5 Marathi textbooks by Maharashtra Board in 2015. In 2017, the landslide survivors were rehabilitated by the state at New Malin, located around 1 km from the disaster site. Built at a cost of Rs 27 crore, New Malin has 68 ‘landslide- and earthquake-resistant’ homes, a school, temple, gram panchayat office and other community spaces.

Despite the instability, Rudra, then six, got admission at the newly built school at New Malin. (Express photo by Pavan Khengre)

In a 2016 interview with The Indian Express, then Pune District Collector Saurabh Rao had said that “slope failure and water-logging” were main reasons for the landslide. Satish Thigale, former head, geology department, Pune University, claimed he had “warned” the government about “a disaster waiting to happen in Malin in August 2003 itself”.

Thigale told The Indian Express, “During my first visit to Malin in 2003, I had observed cracks in some houses. In other houses, residents were using pipes to drain out rain water, which was getting accumulated in huge quantities. I had warned the authorities about Malin then.”

Back at the school, class teacher Santosh Padwal, 50, says he is aware of Rudra’s deeply personal connection with the topic and will ensure the “sensitive chapter does not trigger any traumas”.

Padwal, who wears rectangular glasses, says, “The chapter has basic information on natural calamities. However, I encourage my students to go beyond the textbook. For instance, I have asked them to work in groups to make charts on dos and don’ts in case of a natural calamity.”

The chapter on natural calamities in the Class 5 Marathi textbook. (S K Safrin Begum)

While the chapter and the project will broaden Rudra’s knowledge, he has had a head start on the topic, thanks to his mother’s accounts of the incident. Pramila, 36, recalls sitting on the floor of her old two-room pucca house that “was in perfect condition, with no cracks or leaks” on July 30, 2014.

“Rudra was in my lap and I was making him have medicine. Suddenly, something heavy fell on us. It took a while for me to realise that the hill behind the house had collapsed. I could not see anything, but I could feel the wet mud all over us,” she says.

For the next eight hours — as she was informed later — she held Rudra in one hand, while her other hand was pinned under the mud. “The kitchen racks and utensils had fallen on my back. My head was bent at an angle and stayed that way the whole time. I could not feed Rudra, who kept crying on and off. He just went off to sleep at some point,” she says.

Pramila recalls praying. “My prayers were answered when I heard some voices nearby. I shouted for help and we were pulled out. They told me it was around 4 pm when we were rescued. We spent a week in hospital after our rescue,” she says.

Unlike them, Pramila’s mother-in-law and father-in-law were rescued two hours after the disaster struck. She says her husband Machindra Lembhe, 38, a farmer, was in Pune when the tragedy occurred.

“Rudra started understanding things after his mother told him the story of the landslide and how they were rescued,” says Machindra.

A board pointing to Old Malin. In 2017, the landslide survivors were rehabilitated in New Malin, which is 1 km away from Old Malin. (Ravina Warkad)

Having lost their house in the disaster, the Lembhe family moved in with a relative in Adivare, a nearby village, for over a year. In 2016, they returned to Malin and started living at a temporary set-up near the school. Despite the instability, Rudra, then six, got admission at the newly built school at New Malin.

“Rudra got admission in Class 1 in 2019. He has been doing well in school. In fact, he even delivered a speech in school on Republic Day this year,” says Machindra.

Rudra’s school, with its colourful, hand-painted walls, is located in the rehabilitated village. Every year on July 30, the school organises a remembrance day for the lost lives. A remembrance site was built next to the old school building — the only structure that survived the disaster. Abandoned, locked and gathering dust, the light does not reach the classrooms in the old building but the pillars in its verandah still sport slogans like “Love can win the world”.

The old school building was the only structure that survived the disaster. (Ravina Warkad)

Suresh Rongate, 51, taught in that very building until 10 years ago. He recalls leaving home “as usual” on July 30, 2014, and reaching the school at 9.45 am. “That’s when I came to know about the landslide…Just a day earlier, I had taught my Class 6 students a Hindi chapter titled ‘Bargad ka Ped (A Banyan Tree)’,” he recalls.

It took three months after the tragedy for him to return to teaching. “The locals set up one temporary classroom at the high school near the landslide site. There were no local students left, only a few from nearby villages,” says Rongate.

He worked at the new Malin school till 2018, after which he was transferred to another school near Bhimashankar in Ambegaon taluka. Rudra joined the Malin school a year later.

Meanwhile, evenings at the Lembhe house are quiet and routine. Rudra’s grandmother looks after the children — him and his little brother Rushi, nine — during the day, while their parents work in their rice field. Machindra and his wife return home each day to find Rudra and Rushi, a Class 3 student, studying together. “There’s little we want in life now,” says Machindra.