WAYANAD (Kerala): Jayan, a resident of the landslide-hit Chooralmala in Kerala, was fast asleep in his house on July 29 night.The calm and serene residential location in Wayanad’s Chooralmala was reverberating with the thumping sounds of the torrential rains outside.At 1.30 am on Tuesday, Jayan woke up hearing a loud noise. As he rushed outside his house, he saw flood waters gushing just outside his house and saw people rushing to their terraces, screaming out for help.”There was no power or light. We saw people screaming for help on the other side of the flood waters, but no one could reach near him as slush and rapid waterflow prevented any from going near them,” Jayan, a middle-aged man with a broader forehead and a stress-stricken face, told PTI as he recounted the horrible sequence of events during the early morning hours on Tuesday.Jayan and family, a family of casual labourers, usually go to sleep around 9.30 pm after having their dinner. On Monday night also, the family, like most others in the area, went to bed around 9.30 pm, unaware of the worst fate that was in store for them.Everyone at Chooralmala thought that the 1.30 am landslide would be the only one, and many had gone back to bed, hoping that others who screamed for help would be safe.”But, around 3.30 am, there was a louder noise and everything got over in a flash. Huge boulders and mud with extreme force had taken away all the houses where people earlier cried for help. We did not know what to do as what we saw was nothing but mud, water, and debris flowing in front of us,” Jayan said.Most of the houses in the area vanished within no time, with no signs of life left around.The slush and boulder-filled waters crushed the buildings with people inside.An area that was once full of life suddenly became a river, with slush and debris strewn all around.
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