As they undergo treatment at a local rural hospital for the injuries suffered in Wednesday’s massive landslide at Malin in Ambegaon taluka of Pune district in western Maharashtra, lembes have a reason to thank their lucky stars. For, theirs is the only family in the totally devastated village, where a maximum number of members — including a three-month-old baby boy and his 25-year-old mother — have survived the natural disaster.
Meanwhile, the toll in Wednesday’s landslide rose to 70 on Friday night, as the NDRF personnel extricated 28 more bodies during the day.
In a close-knit lembe family of which two teenage children Amit (13) and Seema (15) are feared dead, the youngest among the survivors is Rudra, who was rescued along with his mother Pramila and four other family members from under the slush and debris by National Disaster Response Force personnel on Wednesday night. They are all being treated at the district sub-rural hospital at Mancher in Ambegaon taluka.
“I was breast-feeding my three-month-old baby Rudra when I heard a huge thud. Before I realised that some calamity had befallen us, I tried to step out of the home along with the baby, the roof and wooden props landed on me. And I was trapped under the wooden props and debris,” 25-year-old Pramila recalled, relating her experience under the debris to mediapersons and her relatives.
“Fortunately, both my son and I were in position to breath. As I lay under the debris, I kept on shrieking for help. My child was also crying uncontrollably. It was only after eight-long hours that I was pulled out of the debris. I have sustained injuries in my back, while my child has suffered a fracture in his leg,” Pramila added, as she undergoes treatment for her injuries.
Pramila and her child were pulled out from under the debris by two youngsters from Chinchwad, Raju limbe and Dilip limbe, on Wednesday night.The two youngsters were among the locals who were assisting the NDRF personnel, engaged in the rescue operation at landslide-hit Malin village.
The other survivors in Pramila’s family are her father-in-law Manohar lembe (50), mother-in-law Tanubai (45) and Meenabai lembe, another family member. While Meenabai’s two teen aged children Amit and Seema were killed in the mishap, her husband Shivaji lembe and son Ajit survived the disaster as they were away from home at that time. There was, however, no confirmation as to the fate of Pramila’s husband Machindra.
“All the injured surviving members of lembe family, including Pramilabai and her three-month-old boy, are doing well at the Mancher Hospital,” Maharashtra’s Assembly Speaker and senior NCP functionary Dilip Walse-Patil told The Pioneer over telephone from Ambegaon on Friday evening.
Walse-Patil, who has been representing Ambegaon, an Assembly constituency (where the landslide occurred on Wednesday) for the last five terms, demanded a through inquiry by environmental experts on the factors that led to the landslide in the eco-sensitive village of Malin.Meanwhile, the toll in Wednesday’s landslide rose to 70 on Friday night, as the NDRF personnel extricated 28 more bodies during the day.
“In all, the NDRF personnel have so far recovered 70 bodies. Given that 72 hours have passed since the landslide, chances of their survival appear. But, the NDRF personnel are continuing their rescue operation,” Pune’s Additional District Collector Ganesh Patil told this newspaper on Friday night.
According to Patil, as many as 168 people were feared trapped under the debris, after Wednesday’s land. “Of the trapped people, we have extricated 70 bodies, while 10 persons have been rescued. Hence we apprehend that at least 88 people are still trapped under debris,” he said.
The landslide, which occurred at around 6 am on Wednesday, had crushed as many as 66 properties, including 45 households, in Malin village. Malin, which forms a part of the Bhimshankar Hills, has incidentally has been identified as one of the eco-sensitive villages in Western Ghat by a High level Working Group (HlWG) headed by Dr K Kasturirangan.
Though the total population of Malin village is 704, the district officials have pegged the number of people living in the part of the village where the mishap took place, at 168.In a related development, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next of kin of the each person killed in Wednesday’s landslide.