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Wayanad landslide survivors urged elephant to spare them: 'Could see eyes welling up'
Wayanad landslide: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor also shared the story of survival and compassion on social media.
A family who survived the landslide in Wayanad's Chooralmala carry with them a powerful tale of survival, compassion, and the unspoken understanding between humans and wildlife.
According to The Times of India report, Sujatha Aninanchira and her family found themselves in a life-threatening situation as a massive landslide flattened their home in Chooralmala. Trapped under the debris, Sujatha, along with her daughter Sujitha, husband Kuttan, and grandchildren Sooraj (18) and Mridula (12), faced what could be considered the most daring escape.
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Sujatha, a tea picker at the Harrisons Malayalam Tea Estate at Mundakkai for 18 years, recounted their harrowing ordeal: “On Monday night as it was raining heavily from 4pm, I woke up at 1.15am. Soon I heard a huge sound, and water came gushing into our house. The roof of our house collapsed on us, leaving my daughter seriously injured. I managed to remove some bricks from the collapsed wall and stepped out.”
Sujatha managed to remove some bricks from the collapsed wall and escape. She heard her granddaughter crying out from the rubble, and, with great effort, she pulled her out. The rest of the family also managed to extricate themselves and waded through the gushing waters, eventually climbing to a nearby hillock.
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Upon reaching the hillock, they encountered a sight that filled them with fear: a tusker and two female elephants stood mere inches away.
Sujatha and her granddaughter clung to an areca nut tree, lying down in terror as the night wore on.
"It was pitch dark, and just half a meter away from us stood a wild tusker. It too seemed terrified. I mumbled a plea to the elephant, saying we had just survived a disaster and asked it allow us to lie down for the night and let someone rescue us," Sujatha was quoted as saying.
The tusker appeared to recognise their plight and remained still, without causing them any harm.
"We were very close to the tusker's legs, but it seemed to understand our predicament. We stayed there till 6am, and the elephants also stood there till we were rescued by some people in the morning. I could see its eyes welling up as the dawn broke," she recalled.
Sharing the story on X, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor wrote, “The homeless landslide victims confided their misery to a tusker, who wept for them and sheltered them all night….”
