Landslide victims helpless after Himachal rain fury; say ‘death better than this nightmare’

Shimla, August 25

“Death would have better than going through this nightmare with nowhere to go and no shoulder to cry on,” says Promila who lost everything when a room in a building she stayed in crumbled in a landslide here.

A landslide in the morning of August 23 damaged a building near Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital (IGMCH) where Promila stayed with her ailing mother.

Narrating her plight to PTI on Friday, she said, “I live with my 75-year-old mother who is suffering from ovarian cancer and has been undergoing treatment since 2016. I also lost my job as a sales girl in a shop in Ram Nagar in the city market last week due to the recession as there were no customers.

 “I slept at IGMCH on Thursday night as there is no place to go,” says Promila, who does not have siblings, or a father, and is also separated from her husband.

 “I am desperately looking for a job and am willing to even clean and sweep as I am in dire need of money for my mother's treatment,” she says before adding, "My mother is all I have." Promila has studied up to class 10.

“We could not salvage our belongings and the only thing left is the clothes we were wearing while running out of the collapsed house,” says another landslide victim Suman whose room was adjacent to Promila's.

Suman who works as a domestic help says that she has lost everything in the landslide and that she has no money to even pay her son's school fees. She said they have no shelter, no clothes and that even the books of her son studying in Class 5 were damaged in the landslide.

“Our plight is miserable but it did not attract the attention of the authorities as no casualty was reported in this landslide. What is the use of getting so many donations, if the state government cannot help the disaster victims,” she says.

“We had food at a gurdwara and are shuttling between our relatives' houses, but we have not received any help or immediate relief,” she adds.

Shimla has witnessed several landslides in the past weeks with the toll in rain-related incidents in the city in the past 10 days rising to 27, which include 20 deaths in Summer Hill landslide, five in Fagli and two in Krishna Nagar.

So far, 242 people have died in rain-related incidents since the onset of monsoon in the state on June 24 till August 24.

Himachal Pradesh saw three major spells of heavy rains this monsoon. The first on July 9 and 10 led to large-scale destruction in Mandi and Kullu districts. Shimla and Solan districts were hit during the second spell on August 14 and 15 and Shimla city suffered heavy damage in the third spell on Tuesday night.

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