Thiruvananthapuram: Rescuers evacuate people from a flood-hit locality, in Thiruvananthapuram.
TENSION WAS writ large on the face of a middle-aged woman as she walked nervously around rescue workers assembling rafts to save people at Urakam village, and surrounding areas of Thrissur district, on Saturday.
“My sons and husband are trapped in there. I am unable to reach them since yesterday (Friday). I was rescued two days ago but they have not come out. I am worried,” she told a policeman.
The woman, Shabana, arrived with her nephew Nazeer outside the mosque at Urakam village early on Saturday after failing to establish contact with her sons. One of the poignant moods at the sites of rescue operations is the anxiety in families in cases where some members have been rescued while others remain marooned.
As many as 200 people remained trapped on rooftops of buildings in Urakam on Saturday morning. “My husband is still stuck there — someone please bring him out,” Lisha Paul, from Etamana village, pleaded after she was rescued.
When a 35-year-old man, paralysed by a road accident, was rescued and brought ashore, his relieved five-year-old daughter spent an hour patting his hair.
When rescue operations were stopped on Saturday evening, nearly 200 people were reported to have been saved by rescue teams from the NDRF, the Kerala Fire Services department and local youths who pressed into services innovative floatable devices such as large cooking vessels and makeshift rafts.
“We went to almost every house and shouted out to see if anyone was still inside. All those who were stranded have been rescued — even from remote areas,” Shriniwas, an assistant commandant of NDRF, said post-operations. One of the last rescue boats to return on Saturday was one of the first ones that set out in the morning. It brought back Shabana’s husband and sons from the roof of a school building, where they had taken shelter when water rose. For Shabana, who waited patiently at Urakam bus stop the whole day, venturing occasionally to check with NDRF and police personnel whether there was still radio contact with the first rescue boat, it was a time to smile.