Meppadi (Wayanad): Neethu Jojo woke up to the pungent smell of dirt and engine oil. It was around 1 am on Tuesday. The savage sound of the river inside the bedroom also made her uncomfortable, for when she went to sleep it was a stream, around 100m away.
Neethu, a front office staff at Dr Moopen's Medical College at Meppadi, immediately woke up her husband Jojo V Joseph. They realised water had entered their house on the High School Road at Chooralmala. Outside, vehicles from distant places had been washed into their courtyard, covered in sludgy water.

She started making panic calls. Within a few minutes, seven families living near the river took refuge in her house, higher up the hillside. They had lost their houses to the landslide. At 1.30 am, she sobbingly called the hospital: "There is a landslide at Chooralmala. Our house is full of water. Will you please tell someone to come and rescue us?"

At 2.18 am, she called her hospital again. "The situation is that we cannot step out of our house now...," she told the duty manager. "One more landslide and we will all go." By 2.30 am, Jojo's friends had reached Chooralmala but the bridge over the river was washed away, and so was the road along the river leading to her house. They stood helpless. "It was a small stream. Today, it is as big as Bharatapuzha," said Neethu's colleague Dr Shanavas Palliyal.

The hospital called back Neethu at 2.50 am. By then, water had been gushing from the back and side of her house. "I think the landslide at Mundakkai has diverted the river to our side," she said. "Our house is the only safe place for the time being. So we cannot move out of this place. We will have to be rescued." Neethu went unheard.

After some time, the kitchen of her 2BHK house was washed away and Neethu went incommunicado. It was the third landslide to hit the area. Her husband Jojo, their five-year-old son, and Jojo's parents who were in the other two rooms, are safe. Dr Moopen's Medical College, where 132 survivors are being treated, said three other employees, Bijesh, Divya and Shafeena are missing in the landslide.

'We were not forcefully removed'
Over 150 people have died in landslides that struck Mundakkai and Chooralmala in Wayanad. "Most of the patients coming to the hospital told us that the administration did not evacuate them forcefully," said Dr Palliyal.

In 2019, when massive landslides wiped out an entire village at Puthumala, 17 people died. "Then people were evacuated from their houses forcefully. But we cannot compare because then the landslides hit the village in the afternoon. This was at midnight," said Dr Palliyal.

However, several rescuers in the hospital said the crystal clear Iruvazhanji river had turned muddy and violent in the incessant rain on Monday. "People could have been evacuated on Monday," said Mohammed Musthafa, a tile mason from Achoor in Pozhuthana panchayat. On Tuesday, he saw the dirt-covered body of his neighbour Girish in the medical college.

"Our panchayat member Subaida (Pareed) brought the body of Girish's wife, Rajani, to the hospital and told me that her husband was missing," said Musthafa. "When I looked around, I saw Girish too among the dead," he said. Girish was a tea estate supervisor with Harrisons Malayalam, an RPG Group company. "He started as a sweeper in the company. He was my neighbour and I laid the tiles in his house," said Musthafa.

Tourists missing
Sukruthi, a medical doctor, and Priyadarshini, a nurse, from Odisha, are in the medical hospital. Dr Sukruthi is in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), said Dr Palliyal. Bishnu Prasad and Swadhin Panda who came with them are missing. The four were staying at Elora Resorts, which is a homestay, he said. "The homestay was washed away. The owner's child is also missing," said another hospital employee.