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At Bastadi village, survivors recall ‘bomb-like explosion’
BASTADI: A sprinkling of chemicals suppressed the stench of rotting flesh at Bastadi, a remote Himalayan village in Uttarakhand that was battered by a cloudburst
BASTADI: A sprinkling of chemicals suppressed the stench of rotting flesh at Bastadi, a remote Himalayan village in Uttarakhand that was battered by a cloudburst on Friday morning.
The rainstorm killed nine villagers instantly while 16 went missing, buried under mounds of mud after a wave of water came hurtling down, carrying trees and boulders. It swept away everything on its path, breaking homes like brittle twigs and sub merging them under the soil.
This included a home where many villagers had gathered after rescuing the family from a flooded stream downhill. They were sipping tea when a loud clap, like the sound of a bomb going off, echoed in the mountains accompanied by sparks and fumes. “The very next moment, a wave of water came gushing down…,” Keshav Dutt Bhatt said.
Fellow survivor Vishnu Dutt Bhatt heard the “big, bomb-like explosion” too. He led rescue officials to the spot where a woman might be buried along with her child. Another villager kept asking officials to dig at a particular spot where those 10-15 people were sipping tea before they were annihilated. A muddied type writer was kept nearby. “This must be master sahib’s… he was fond of writing.”
A man from a nearby village, whose uncle went missing, alleged that some Bastadi residents were misleading rescuers to dig at spots where they believe people’s valuables—gold and silver ornament s—lay buried under the mud. “Don’t listen to these men,” cried Deepak Pathak of Ogla. “Please dig to find bodies…”he egged on.
Village head man Vi jay Pradhan said he survived because he lived on the other side of the hamlet. “We shiver with horror recalling the sight,” he said, shuddering.
Many of the survivors have moved out with their belongings after the killer cloudburst turned their village into a desolate patch of broken, barren land.
An 80-metre-wide and 500-metre-long patch of landslide gawks widely, as if a giant razor has sheared the entire mountainside.
Nestled in a mountain slope, this picturesque village overlooking the tourist town of Askot in Pithoragarh district is a kilometer-long trek from the main road. It’s a prosperous hamlet with many residents in government jobs and a good income from crops.
Social activist Himanshu Ojha, who lives in the vicinity, was the first to reach the village .“We called police and I personally went to the home of the district magistrate as his phone was out of reach.”
Heavy rain and the physical challenge of reaching the village had slowed down relief and rescue. There is tardiness at the bureaucratic level too, villagers alleged. “The bodies are being handed over after along wait for autopsy… they started stinking,” said Trilochan Bhatt who lost his brother, a class 4 employee at a government school.
Colonel JS Chaudhary of the 8th Assam Regiment posted in Charma, barely 2km from the site, and his men reached the place in an hour after the district magistrate called for help at 9.30 am on Friday. “We began the rescue operation immediately and were able to rescue a woman, who is in hospital now,” the Colonel said. Around half-a-dozen-more-trapped people were pulled out too.
