The village watchman of Nauthan village, Rajesh Nautiyal was woken up late on Wednesday night by the noise of raging waters and rushed out to see the nearby gorge in spate.
Fearing a disaster, he raised the alarm in the village and hearing his shouts, many of the villagers evacuated their homes and went to safer places. However, in his attempt to save the villagers, Rajesh
himself was lost in the debris and his body was yet to be found till the time of this report being filed. His wife Asha Devi along with his 75-year-old father Sundar lal was eyeing the debris expectantly in the hopes of finding him.
Another villager, Shakuntala Devi who was already struggling to sustain her family following the suicide of her husband, has now been rendered without the sole source of her income
following the disaster on Wednesday night.
Shakuntala’s husband Mahadev Nautiyal had
committed suicide earlier this year on April 4. She was left as the only one in the family comprising two children and two in-laws, who could earn to sustain the family.
After her husband’s death, she reopened his closed shop and was earning from this shop to sustain her family. However, the disaster destroyed her shop, leaving the family without their sole source of income. Hearing the noise of the cloud burst, Shakuntala Devi’s mother in law came out of the home to check the situation but was buried under debris that also blocked the door of the home. later, locals removed the debris and
rescued Shakuntala Devi, her children and father in law
from their home.