House inundated, Army rescues aged woman

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, August 14

Sartanjla (72) who lives by herself in Sai village, 30 kilometers from here, was left helpless on the intervening night of August 12 and 13, when flood water entered her house following heavy rain.

Her house was under three to five feet deep water and it became difficult for her to go upstairs to save her life. She called her neighbours for help, who reached the spot within a few minutes and tried to seek assistance from the civil authorities, but all in vain.

Sartanjla’s various calls to the control rooms set up by the state government at Dharamsala, Dheera and Palampur to extend help to the people in such untoward incidents remained unattended. Her son is a senior officer in the Indian Army, who is posted at the Army Headquarters in New Delhi.

She said at 4am, she was left with no alternative except to contact her son in Delhi. She apprised him of the problem and he immediately contacted the Army authorities at Palampur and Yol Camp to provide immediate assistance to his aged mother who was helpless.

She said at 7am Army jawans in two vehicles accompanied by a senior officer reached her house with pumping sets and began flushing out the flood water. First, they rescued her and shifted her to a safer place. It took them six hours to pump out the flood water.

She thanked the Army authorities who saved her life by reaching her house on time. She said had the Army help not reached her on time she would have been washed away. She said most of her belongings were destroyed. The flood water had entered all the rooms in the ground floor.

The Tribune team visited the village on Tuesday and found that except local patwaris none had turned up at the house of the flood victim. Sai falls in the constituency of Health Minister Vipan Singh Parmar. SDM Dheera Sanjay Kumar said he was unaware of the incident and he had no knowledge that the Army had rescued the old woman in Sai village on Monday. He said patwaris had informed him about the flood water entering a few houses in Sai village, but he passed no information regarding the Army’s visit to the village.

House under 5 ft water

Her house was under three to five feet deep water and it became difficult for her to go upstairs to save her life. She called her neighbours for help, who reached the spot within a few minutes and tried to seek assistance from the civil authorities, but all in vain.