It is a lone search by Shanmughanathan for his son Dineshkumar, nearly 50 days after the devastating landslip at Pettimudy.
The death toll in the August 7 landslip has been put at 66. Four persons are still missing.
Dineshkumar, 22, is one among the missing. Shanmughanathan travels almost every day from his house at MG Colony in Munnar to Pettimudy and makes a desperate lone search for his missing son.
Dineshkumar and his brother Nithishkumar, 19, were caught in the landslip and the latter’s body was recovered a day after the tragedy. On August 25, when the official search for the missing persons ended, Shanmughanathan started his lone search in the deserted village, where four estate lanes were buried under the debris of the landslip.
Shanmughanathan told The Hindu on Wednesday that his sons were at Pettimudy to attend a function at a relative’s house at one of the four lanes. “They reached there on August 4 and stayed there for the function on August 7,” he said.
Almost everyone living at the area had either shifted to new lanes or returned to their native places in Tamil Nadu after the tragedy. “For the past few days, I did not go to Pettimudy due to heavy rain. Once the weather clears, I will go there again,” he says.
Shanmuganathan is a cashier at Kerala Gramin Bank at Marayur.
Dineshkumar had completed bachelor’s degree at Dr Mahalingam College of Engineering and Technology at Pollachi in Tamil Nadu this year.
While Shanmuganathan continues his search at Pettimudy for Dineshkumar, his wife, Manjula, and daughter Vaishnavi wait for his return in the evening.
“I lost 22 family members in the landslip. Three people from our family are still missing,” he says.