Wayanad landslide: Race across bridge, then miracle in mud

Wayanad (Kerala), Jul 7 (PTI) The first videos from the landslide at the Wayanad-Kozhikode tunnel construction site in this hill district captured a terrifying race against time. An estate worker, her husband and several others can be seen sprinting across Meenakshi Bridge at Kalladi as a massive wave of mud bursts through the metal and cloth barricades around the construction site and rushes towards them. For a few moments, it appears as though there is no escape. A CCTV camera from another angle records what happens next. The torrent of mud catches up with the couple and several others, sweeping them away along with a large tanker lorry. The flow carries both the people and the heavy vehicle across the bridge before crashing into a row of shops on the other side, where it finally comes to a halt. The landslide hurls the tanker into a jeep parked beyond the bridge, leaving those watching the footage fearing the worst for the couple, who had disappeared beneath the churning mud. Then, seconds later, they emerge from between the lorry and the jeep, covered head to toe in mud but alive. Speaking to a television channel after the incident, the woman, an estate worker, recalled the terrifying moments before the landslide struck. “We were waiting for a bus at the foot of the construction site when we suddenly saw a huge mound of mud sliding down from the site. “As we ran across the bridge, the mud came and swept us away. We fell, and it carried us away along with the lorry. I thought I would come under the lorry, but we were carried alongside it. I don’t know how we escaped.” She said she suffered only a minor injury to her right arm. Her husband, who also works at an estate in the area, escaped without any serious injuries. The woman said another person had been waiting at the bus stop and had been running behind them, but she did not know what had happened to him. “There were some people at the construction site as well. I don’t know what happened to them. We are alive by God’s grace,” she said. She added that the area had received heavy rain over the past two to three days. Her husband said they had immediately started running after seeing the mudslide. “We saw the mudslide and started running. We did not see the lorry that was being carried along with us. Our home is well above the landslide site. There was no mudslide there.” He said the mound of mud that had built up at the construction site had appeared dangerous to him. PTI HMP TGB HMP SSK