Survivors’ hopes of finding missing kin fades with time

Ragi Pardhi, a 45-year-old woman, climbed up to Irshalwadi in search of her missing grandson after a landslide. Many other villagers have also lost multiple family members. Rescue teams are struggling to excavate the debris manually and bad weather is hampering their efforts.

Irshalwadi: Forty-five-year-old Ragi Pardhi, who was on Thursday at a shelter in Namrichawadi where the base camp is, climbed up to Irshalwadi on Friday morning in search of her grandson who has been missing since Wednesday night’s landslide.

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About 15 of her relatives from her maternal and in-laws’ side have been missing since the landslide. She moved around to pick up some of her stuff and return to the base camp where the district administration had organised some containers for the temporary stay of those rescued.

The rescue teams led by the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), which battled heavy rain and deep fog engulfing the hamlet when rain stopped briefly, has been working in one corner of Irshalwadi directly under the spot where the soil came lose on Wednesday night.

The sludge in other parts of the landslide zone is so thick and deep that unless debris excavators are brought in, it will take a long time for workers to excavate it manually.

Ragi Pardhi is not the only one to have lost many family members on the fateful night. Yashwant Pardhi, 36, has seven members of his family missing. He seems lost and helpless as time ticks away and the hope of seeing his family again withers away.

Five members of Laxmi Bhavar’s, 39, family are missing and Dhondi Laska, 43, has six relatives buried under the debris. With weather not permitting airlifting of any excavators, time is running out rapidly, and the hopes of the villagers are fading.

Ashok Bhutambare, 21, spent much of Thursday sitting by the corner of his house and guiding the rescue teams to his five missing family members. On Wednesday night, he was playing PubG game with his friends at a school downhill, while the rest of his family went missing.

On Thursday, the rescue team managed to extricate his mother’s body from the debris. On Friday, the bodies of two more of his relatives, including his grandmother, were found.