They were used to the noisy rain. Murugesan, a canteen owner, was lying down inside the house listening to the pitter patter, with his wife Murukeshari. Their son Ganesan was in the kitchen. That's when the family of three, living in one corner of the Pettimudi Hills in Kerala’s Idukki, heard something unusual – the sound was deafening. Suddenly everything seemed to shake as the winds tapped threateningly on all sides of the house.
Fearing the worst, Murugesan took out the torch from underneath the bed and gave it to his son, asking him to escape by breaking open the tiled roof. He didn’t think he or his wife stood a chance. But Ganesan managed to escape and take his parents along too. They were among the lucky few to have survived the disastrous mudslide in Pettimudi that occured past 1 am on Friday, the death toll of which has now risen to 23.
“Murugesan’s family was on the left corner of the hills. Another family of a driver named Karthik living on the right corner of the hills also managed to escape. Karthik, his mother, his sister and the sister’s child were living there. Both these families managed to run away before the landslide worsened,” says Parthasarathy D, a ward member of the Munnar Panchayat.
Murugesan told Asianet News about breaking open the ceiling and putting a hole in the wall to escape.
"‘We won’t get out of this alive, at least you save yourself,’ I told Ganesan, and asked him to bring someone from nearby houses. I thought only our wall had collapsed. I cried out loud asking for help, but nobody came. We heard voices from the neighbouring house, but nobody came," Murugesan said.
All three of them are admitted at the Tata High Range Hospital.
Ganesan, lying on the adjacent bed, said how he had broken the tiled roof of his house with stones. There were only 10 meters between him and the river, he said. After escaping to safety, he went to get help from three kilometres away, in the pouring rain. By then it was 3 am, two hours since the landslide struck.
More than 50 people were under the rubble when rescue operations had to be stopped by night late on Friday. Lack of electricity connection had made it difficult to inform rescue personnel.
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