Helplessness, despair grip residents in flooded villages

GIDDERPINDI (JALANDHAR): Submerged crops, which are the only source of income for marginal farmers, barely visible houses due to the deluge, several villagers stranded atop their homes while others trying to put in efforts to save their belongings from the floodwater and some shifting with their cattle to other places — this was the scenario in villages that got inundated due to breach at two spots at Mandala and Janian Chahar villages, near Lohian, in the Shahkot subdivision.

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Gidderpindi (Jalandhar), August 20

Submerged crops, which are the only source of income for marginal farmers, barely visible houses due to the deluge, several villagers stranded atop their homes while others trying to put in efforts to save their belongings from the floodwater and some shifting with their cattle to other places — this was the scenario in villages that got inundated due to breach at two spots at Mandala and Janian Chahar villages, near Lohian, in the Shahkot subdivision. Besides, a breach was reported at Sarupwal village in Kapurthala too.

Some of the villagers in Jalandhar saw their prized possessions getting drowned in water as they left their homes with their children without taking other important items thinking that the problem would not get worse. Some of the elderly who could not carry everything with them said they had now left everything on the almighty. As The Tribune visited Gidderpindi, Kutbewal, Kalu Mundi and Nawan Pind Khalewal villages, the feeling of despair could be sensed. The residents were trying everything to protect their abodes from the brunt of water.

Balwant Kaur, a 70-year-old woman from Kutbewal village, said she had left her home last night when the reports of the possible breach came.

“Is umar vich is tarah apna ghar chad ke jana, eh nai hona chahida si” (leaving home at this age, this should not have happened), she said.

We just took some clothes and left the home, which is half submerged in the water. If the water flow will keep on increasing, we will suffer a lot,” Kaur said while sobbing.

Another woman Harvinder Kaur of the same village started crying and said it was around three months ago when she lost her husband, and now, she had to leave her home with her son who was studying.

“We had sensed that something bad is going to happen. I am seeing my fields getting destroyed in front of my eyes. I don’t know how I am going to survive,” she said, adding that she had just gone through a tragedy, and she was not in a position to suffer another.

Several farmers also shared their plight. They were looking at their submerged fields with hopelessness. They said in 1988, they had witnessed such a scenario but it was worse than that, they said.

Cemeteries flooded, man cremates wife by roadside

As all cemeteries in flood-ravaged Gidderpindi village got filled with water, a man had to cremate the body of his wife by the roadside. Villager Bhupinder Singh alleged that his wife Daljeet Kaur suffered BP problem after flood waters reached their house. “We got her admitted to a hospital but doctors could not save her. When we returned from the hospital with her body, we realised that all cremation grounds were filled with water.Hence, we had no alternative but to cremate her by the roadside,” he said.