At Idukki’s Pettimudi, where a landslide claimed 52 lives on Friday, grief and relentless search for loved ones continue. For four days now, reporters and rescue workers at the site have also spotted a dog who was searching for its master in the loose earth and debris from the landslip.
Visuals from the area show this dog moving around frantically, sniffing and digging the soil, perhaps to unearth remains of its owner’s house that once stood there. It is also seen moving from one boulder to the other, picking up rags from the site and pawing the soil.
Forty eight year old Annadurai and his wife Thankamma’s mortal remains were unearthed from the site of the landslide at Nemmakkadu Estate lines in Pettimudi.
“This is Annadurai’s dog. The first line house or layam belonged to him. All the residents of the house are under the mud. Listening to the noise just before the landslide, the dog had stayed away from place. In the morning when it came looking for the house and his owner, there was only mud on all sides. He has been searching for his owner for days together and we can hear him whimpering,” Vairamuthu, local resident of Pettimudi in Idukki told a local media house.
According to the locals, the dog was perhaps searching for a sign of his old master and his family’s belongings.
“He doesn’t know what took place here. He is perhaps even searching for the vessel with which they fed him. One day he had his house and owner at this exact site and the next day, everything is wiped out,” a local reporter who visited the landslip site explains.
One of the worst landslides witnessed in Kerala since 2018, the Pettimudi tragedy has thus far claimed 52 lives after it destroyed 20 houses. Most of the victims are plantation workers from Tamil Nadu who were working in the Kannan Devan Hill Plantation Company. The landslide occurred on Friday morning near the Rajamalai hill when earth and huge boulders fell over four line houses or Layams, where plantation workers and their families lived.
Fire and Rescue workers and teams of the National Disaster Response Force or NDRF have been at the site, combing through the debris to retrieve bodies.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also announced Rs 5 lakh as ex gratia to the kin of those deceased in the landslide.