Kerala resumes life on an incertain note

KOCHI: P Bhuvanachandran, a resident of Thodaparambu is utterly devastated. The floodwater had gone as high as the power lines here and on Monday afternoon, his entire belongings, including damaged appliances, furniture and a scooter, lay scattered on the courtyard of his house.
A tear drop ran down his cheek before he regained composure to speak. “Even the clothes we wear and the food we have now are borrowed.For the rich, they will have some savings left to start over but for us that is not the case, we are broke and in debt,” said Bhuvanachandran, whose singlestorey house remained submerged for at least three days.
He and his wife Sophie had come to Thodaparambu seven years ago to find work and have been staying here on rent ever since. Three years ago he met with an accident, which forced him out of his earlier job as a manual labourer. Sophie, who stepped up then, took up the job as a maid and earned enough to start a shop of her own. But now even that shop has been destroyed in the flood.
“She had purchased all these appliances on EMI and the payments are pending. The scooter which she used to travel around to work as a maid is damaged as well,” said Bhuvanachandran.
A few kilometres away at Vachal, Santhosh Pinakkanpady’s house is in a badly damaged condition. “I remember coming back to check on my neighbours on an inflated rubber tube. The power lines were right above and I had to hold on to the cables to pull myself close to my neighbourhood,” said Santhosh.
G K Sasi and wife Jaima, who stay nearby, had built their house near a paddy field to realize a long-pending dream. He was careful enough to build his two-storey house above a concrete structure about 10ft high. However, the waters caught him unawares, flooding both the floors.
“My husband was sure that the water will not rise much and we stayed in the top most part. I had gone to the kitchen in the first floor wading through the water to cook some food and a snake got tangled on my leg, making my flesh creep. We spent about 24 hours there before our neighbours came with a raft to get us out,” said Jaima. In the region, similar destruction was experienced in Neelishwaram, Okkal, Koovapady, Kanjoor and Kalady panchayats and parts of Perumbavoor municipality.
Goods stocked in shops at Kalady town for Onam and Eid celebrations were completely destroyed in the floods.
Residents say that while it took about 12 hours for water to enter low-lying areas, it reached the adjacent high level properties swiftly — up to 4ft in two hours!
“Our house started to get flooded in the evening and I swam out by 8.30pm. By then water had reached the top of my front door. We later came back to get my family on a raft. By around 2am, water had reached the first floor to a height of one feet,” said Thankachan, a local resident.