Help arrived from air on Saturday for the hapless villagers of the Bairagarh located on the Bank of Hinwal River in the Yamkeshwar block of Pauri district. To save the lives of villagers trapped after the cloudburst, the State Government deployed two helicopters that rescued 103 villagers.
The villagers were stranded on a hillock for two days as rising Hinwal River flooded the village, to add to their woes muddy water from neighbouring hillocks entered their lush green fields and houses.
An eyewitnesses account suggests that everything was as usual in the sleepy but picturesque village till afternoon of August 14 when it started pouring heavily, as heavy rains continued the water in the river started rising. One of the
villagers Vinod Jugran said that it is normal for the river to rise in the rainy season and as the houses are on a safe distance and elevation from the river the villagers never feel threatened by it.
“The whole village could not sleep in the night due to the unusually high sound of the river, at around 3.30 am the water level in the river rose alarmingly, we had never seen such a high level of river water, as the water started entering the houses, alarmed villagers rushed out and started assembling at a higher point”, he said.
The house of Sumitra Devi who cooks Mid Day Meal (MDM) in the Government Primary school of the village was the place of shelter for most of the villagers on the fateful night of 14/15 August. As the villagers were running for safety muddy water from the nearby hills swept the village.
The Pradhan of the village Arun Jugaran told this correspondent that muddy water from two sides hit the village and many villagers especially women had to be saved from being swept away by the water. Jugaran said that the whole scale of the destruction was witnessed only after the sunrise. “To our horror we saw that at least a dozen houses were damaged, and silt had entered almost all the households and all our fields were covered with mud and water”, he said. A housewife Rita Gusain shuddering with the harrowing experience said that some part of her house was swept away in the surging waters of the river Hinwal.
An emotional Gusain said that it was as if our worst fears have come true, we had no water to drink and very less supply of food left to survive.
The Pradhan claimed that he informed the district administration in the wee hours of August 15 and demanded immediate help. The heavy rains had damaged the road network of the district and administration was in no position in providing any help to the villagers.
The District Magistrate of Pauri CS Bhatt informed the senior officials about the gravity of the situation. The Health Minister Surendra Singh Negi visited the village along with the Secretary Disaster management Bhaskaranand and took stock of the situation. After assessing the situation the administration planned for airlifting the stranded villagers. The operation started at around 1.00 pm on Saturday and two helicopters were engaged in the operation.
The villagers were airlifted to the Ved Ashram located on the banks of river Ganga in Rishikesh where the government has made arrangements for their stay. A tearful Rita Gusain said that the sight of helicopters instilled the confidence in the villagers many of whom had lost any hope of life in the wake of catastrophe which had struck the village.