Wayanad, July 30, 2024 Life changed forever for hundreds of families living on the slopes of the picturesque Mundakai and Chormalala hills in Wayanad district of Kerala.
Within seconds, a massive landslide occurred across the hills. Mud and rocks swallowed homes, shops, places of worship, and roads. Entire swaths of land have disappeared. Three wards of Meppadi panchayat were eliminated.
When the rain stopped and the dust settled, many people lost their lives.
Some children were left without anyone in their families. Many survivors stood alone where their homes once stood, with nothing left to repair or rebuild.
Rescue teams worked for months in difficult terrain, searching through mud and debris.
For those who survived, the days that followed were filled with sadness, fear and uncertainty about the future.
During rehabilitation talks with the government, the survivors made a simple request that they wanted to live together again. They did not want to spread out in different places.
The Kerala government listened. A township project was developed to rehabilitate all affected families in one place.
In Elton Estates, on 130 acres of land acquired through the application of the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, a new settlement has taken shape.
There are now neat rows of well-built houses where there used to be open land. The town being built includes basic facilities such as a hospital, school, community hall and playgrounds.
Shops and other services are also planned to help families resume their livelihoods.
The first batch of 178 beneficiaries of houses built under the Model Township project near Kalpetta will start living there from March 1, after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hands over the keys.
“We are very happy and very grateful. This is a good area, very close to Kalpetta city and we never dreamed of having such a good house in this area. The government has done better than we all imagined,” Manoj JMG, a survivor and organizer of Landslide Survivors Action Council, told PTI Videos.
Manoj came with his wife to see their house allotted to them by lottery.
“The government gave us rent and money to survive, and now this beautiful house has all the amenities and even has a combination wall and gate,” Manoj said.
He said that soon after the disaster struck and the loss of many of their loved ones, what continued to haunt them was the separation they felt as those who lived close to each other had to live in different areas in rented houses.
“Now we will all live in one place again, and we are very happy. We are very grateful,” Fawzia, another beneficiary in the first phase, told PTI.
Works to complete the finer details of the homes in the first phase are progressing well. The government was forced to postpone the delivery of keys to beneficiaries to March 1 from the first proposed date of February 25.
“It does not mean that work is being done only on these 178 houses. In fact, we have completed more than 210 houses and only minor works are left. The request made by these people is that they all want to live here before the next monsoon, and they want to complete the remaining works as well,” said Dr Arun Go, Chief Operating Officer of the Wayanad Town Project.
He said that a total of 410 homes will be completed, and public facilities will be completed in three phases.
“The contract we entered into with the building contractor is for 540 days, and all work will be completed within this time frame,” he said.
At present, 320 people are looking for homes in the town. Many families who were initially unwilling to join the project accepted instead $Now 15k instead of a house is starting to come back, asking for houses in town and offering to repay the money they took.
The district collector has already said that their applications are being actively considered.
Emotions are expected to run high when beneficiaries gather to receive the keys from the Prime Minister on March 1.
Many survivors visited the town to see the progress of construction.
Road paving work is currently underway, with approximately 12 kilometers of high-quality paved roads planned within the town, to connect all the homes. Each cluster of 20 homes will have a shared green space, which residents can use as a garden, for playing or for small-scale farming.
Each home has a built-up area of 1,000 square feet, with a strong foundation that allows owners to build additional floors in the future if they wish. Solar panels have been installed on the balcony of each house to ensure energy self-sufficiency.
The town also has two central wastewater treatment plants that are energy neutral and use environmentally friendly treatment methods. A 95,000 liter water tank provides water to every home.
“This water flow is also based on gravity flow as water from Karapuzha dam flows to the water tank using gravity and water from the tank to the overhead water tanks in each house also uses gravity without the need of electrical power,” Arun JO said.
This article was generated from an automated news feed without any modifications to the text.
