Huge boulders fell first, then came mud: Villagers recount night of tragedy

Seventeen-year-old Jayashree Wagh is devastated after losing her entire family in a landslide in Khalapur. Many others are also missing and injured.

Khalapur: Seventeen-year-old Jayashree Kisan Wagh, a resident of Irshalwadi and a Class XII student at an ashram school in Panvel, is unable to comprehend the turn her life has taken.

HT Image

Dressed in her blue school uniform, tears keep rolling down her eyes as relatives wail around her at the house of Ram Bhavan, a Namrachiwadi villager who offered shelter to a number of those rescued.

Jayashree came to the village only to find her entire family of seven including her parents, grandparents, sisters missing.

In the same room, Sunita and Pilla Pardhi are traumatised and unable to speak. They were sleeping in their house in Irshalwadi when big boulders came down on their village in the dark of the night. They managed to escape with their two small children. However, nine other family members are missing.

A little away sits Ragi Pardhi who claimed that at least 15 members of her family from the maternal side and the in-laws are missing.

Deafening noise and darkness

“We were all sleeping and suddenly, there was a deafening noise. There was no electricity, and it was dark. We couldn’t understand what was happening. We saw huge boulders all over and fled from the house as fast as we could.

“However, Sudam was buried under the rubble, and we could do nothing to rescue him,” Mohan Pardhi told HT.

His father Tukaram, brother Ravindra, his wife Tulsi, and their eight-month-old daughter Bhanushree were all rescued. Sudam had recently started working in a hotel in Matheran.

At ground zero in Irshalwadi, where the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) and other rescue teams are trying to remove the massive debris, 21-year-old Ashok Bhutambare has not moved from the spot where his house once.

Five people from his family were missing. He survived the tragedy because on Wednesday he went with his friends to play PubG, an e-game, at a school nearby. After a few hours, the rescue team managed to find his mother.

Further in the village, 49-year-old Ram Gomavir also spent the day searching for his sister and her family.

About 20 kms away from the landslide location, 21-year-old Pravin Pandurang Pardhi and 37-year-old Yashwant Ragho Dore were admitted to the MGM Hospital in Panvel. They were the first of the injured to be rescued by the villagers who ran uphill to help.

Among the first responders were Parshuram Nirgude and Suresh Bhasma from Varosewadi , the nearest village to Irshalwadi. Pardhi and Dore are their relatives.

Village wiped out

“Around 10.45 pm on Wednesday, I got a call from a cousin about the landslide. Apparently, 21 men from Irshalwadi had gone for fishing in another area and when they returned, they found the village gone.

“One of them called my cousin, who then informed me. At first, I thought it was a prank and called up my relatives in Irshalwadi frantically. All the phones were ringing, but no one answered. I had hoped that they would be safe but when I reached there, with five others, the whole village had vanished,” said Nirgude.

When they reached the spot, they could faintly hear Dore’s voice and started digging the place where his house once stood.

“Before digging, we inserted a few bamboos horizontally above us to stop anything that slides from above. Dore had fractured his leg and couldn’t walk and was brought down on stretcher, while Pardhi, who sustained minor injuries, was carried on the back of a villager.

“Usually, we take only 15 minutes to come down from Irshawadi to our village but on Wednesday night, it took us two hours to come down due to heavy rains, sliding mud and absolutely no visibility,” said Nirgude.

Children now homeless

With no schools around, the children from Irshawadi usually are sent to Mangaon or Lonavala ashram run schools.

“Many children passed Class 12 this year and hence, all of them were at home. But the smaller kids, who would be at their respective hostels, will now have no homes to come back,” said Bhasma.

Last year, Dore had built a house where he and his wife slept while his daughter and parents stayed in their old house. His two sons are in a hostel.

“I saw my wife Kavita who is safe. But could not see my daughter and parents,” Dore said.

No power, No alert

Pardhi, who stayed with his brother, sister-in-law and parents, has lost all of them.

“Dore told us that first huge rocks fell on the homes and then the mud started falling. The rocks that fell on the homes killed almost everyone. We could see only five partially broken homes remaining of the 55 houses that existed till yesterday,” added Bhasma.

With maximum relatives in Irshawadi, the duo said, they can never go back to the village, which has been wiped off. With no electricity connection, the villagers had no idea about the red alert.

“Irshalwadi does not have electricity connection and it was only last year that they got solar panels. Currently with no sunlight, the solar panels are not charged,” said Bhasma.

“Last year most of the families bought fridge and television sets as they got solar panels. But as they were not working for a few days, they had no idea about the red alert.

“None of the panchayat officials also bothered to visit them and tell them to move out of the houses due to the alert. However, this place was never in danger. Never have we felt any threat here,” said Bhasma.

(With inputs from Satish Bate)