‘I may see their eyes welling up’: Grateful Wayanad survivors recount how elephants stood guard for them | Kochi Information

MEPPADI: Sujatha Aninanchira and her household may have made probably the most daring escape among the many landslide survivors at Chooralmala.
Her dwelling was flattened by the landslide within the early hours of Tuesday, trapping her and 4 different members of the family however they managed to extricate themselves from the rubble and climbed to a hillock solely to seek out themselves face-to-face with a tusker and two feminine elephants standing close by.
Sitting in a reduction camp at Meppadi GHSS along with her granddaughter, Sujatha recounted how the tusker appeared to acknowledge their plight and stood nonetheless mere inches away from them with out harming them. Sujatha and her granddaughter clung to an are canut tree and lay down on the bottom, spending the night time in terror, their life hanging in steadiness.
“It was pitch darkish and simply half a metre away from us was a wild tusker. It too appeared terrified. I mumbled a request to the elephant, saying I had simply survived a catastrophe and requested it to spare us to permit us to lie down for the night time and let somebody rescue us,” mentioned Sujatha who’s at present staying on the reduction camp at Meppadi GHSS.
“We have been very near the tusker’s legs, but it surely appeared to know our predicament. We stayed there until 6am, and the elephants additionally stood there until we have been rescued by some individuals within the morning. I may see its eyes welling up because the daybreak broke,” mentioned Sujatha.
Sujatha has been working as a tea picker on the Harrisons Malayalam Tea Property at Mundakkai for 18 years and lived in her home alongside along with her daughter Sujitha, husband Kuttan, and grandchildren Sooraj (18) and Mridula (12).
“On Monday night time because it was raining closely from 4pm, I awoke at 1.15am. Quickly I heard an enormous sound, and water got here gushing into our home. All of us sat on the mattress and shortly big wooden logs got here banging on the home, together with particles from our neighbours’ homes, which had all been flattened.
The roof of our home collapsed on us, leaving my daughter severely injured. I managed to take away some bricks from the collapsed wall and stepped out,” Sujatha mentioned.
Sujatha mentioned that her granddaughter cried out from the rubble and when she managed to pay money for her finger and pulled her out.
The three others within the household additionally managed to get out and waded by means of the gushing waters and crawled up the hillock behind their home, the place espresso timber stood, and ended up earlier than the elephants.