They ran for their lives as boulders and water banged at their door. Now everything is buried in mud

Associated Press

WAYANAD, India (AP) — When Deva Das was jolted awake by the roar of gushing water and boulders banging at the door, he grabbed his parents and his kids and began running for higher ground.

The family waded through slush and muck, climbed a hill, and stayed there in the pouring rain for nearly four hours. When day broke Tuesday, rescuers found the family and brought them down.

When the 40-year-old agricultural laborer got back to the site of his village in southern India’s Kerala state, there was nearly nothing left. Houses were gone, buried under mud or wiped away. Trees were uprooted, and roads were swept away. Families were frantically searching for their loved ones.

“It was a happy village,” said Das. “Now everything is lost.” He’s staying at a relief center for displaced people.

At least 201 people have been killed in Kerala since Tuesday after multiple landslides in the hills of Wayanad district sent torrents of mud, floodwater and giant rolling boulders to downhill villages, burying people or sweeping them away several miles downstream. The disaster also left behind a trail of destruction in its wake by flattening hundreds of houses and destroying roads and bridges.

Images from the site of disaster show gashes in the green hillside where mud slid down, as rescue workers trekked knee-deep in the muck to find missing people. Nearly 40 bodies were found some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the area where the main landslides occurred, after being swept along the Chaliyar River. In some cases, rescuers found only body parts.

Heavy-duty lifting equipment didn’t reach some villages until late Thursday when a bridge constructed by Indian army engineers allowed vehicles to make their way towards the worst-hit areas.

Rescue workers continue to recover and identify bodies, and with nearly 200 people still missing, the death toll is expected to rise, P. M. Manoj, a spokesperson for Kerala’s top elected official, said. More than 5,500 people were rescued from hillside villages and taken to relief centers.

Wayanad, a popular tourist destination, is known for picturesque hills dotted with tea and cardamom estates. It is also part of the ecologically sensitive Western Ghats, a mountain range that runs along the western coast of India.

The region is prone to heavy rains, flooding and landslides. In 2018, nearly 500 people were killed in the state after one of its worst floods left behind a trail of destruction. Since then, a construction boom in the region has made it even more vulnerable to flooding and landslides.

Most of victims of Tuesday’s disaster were migrant workers working in the tea and cardamom estates, who lived in a string of settlements, some on or near the top of the lush slopes. Other villages, including the ones buried by the landslides, are clustered at the foot of the hills.

Several days of rain preceded the landslides. Some survivors said they knew such heavy rains could bring trouble.

Rakeeba, a tea estate worker, said the villagers were apprehensive and people were told to be cautious.

When the first landslide struck her village at midnight Tuesday, the 45-year-old was asleep at home. When she looked around, water had already made it inside her house.

Worried, Rakeeba ran uphill, and saw parts of the hillside above one village giving out, before floodwater and mud swept away everything in their path.

“We don’t know where we will go now. Those who were there are not there anymore,” she said, holding back tears.