With winter approaching, residents of several villages of south Kashmir, which bore the brunt of floods, are now searching the debris of their houses to find something useful.
Houses collapsed and waters took away everything from residents of Hassanpora Tawaila village of Anantnag district in Jammu & Kashmir when the floods swamp the village on September 5.
“When the floods came, it was like the river flowing in our village, in our houses and it took away everything we had,” Kounsar Ahmad Reshi said. He said the water remained in the village for four days, submerging most of the structures and destroying many.
“We saw our houses crumbling. I had a three-storey house and I saw it, from a distance going down,” Reshi, who used to run an electric-goods shop in the ground floor of the house, said. Reshi, who lived with his two uncles with the total strength of 32 family members, was now searching the debris along with them to find anything that could be useful as the winters were approaching.
“Some of the goods from the shop were washed away and the rest were buried under the debris. Our clothes, utensils, things and food grains were all destroyed. The winters are approaching and we cannot think of anything,” he said. There are many people in the village who, like Reshi, now live with their relatives or neighbours after their houses were destroyed by the floods, but there are many more whose houses are intact but they fear to live in those.