Chositi: Nine-year-old Devanshi was among the hundreds of pilgrims who had gathered here for the last leg of the yatra to Machail Mata temple when tragedy struck on Thursday. Buried under mud and debris when a Maggi-point shop was hit by flash floods, she emerged hours later, rescued by her uncle and other villagers.
“I couldn’t breathe. My uncle, bouji, and others removed wooden planks after hours, and we all came out. Mata saved us,” she says, the terror still vividly reflected in her voice.
Like her, 32-year-old Sneha is still in disbelief that she is alive. Moments after loading luggage onto their vehicle, she and her four family members were swept away in a roaring torrent, buried under mud and crushed beneath a vehicle.
“I was trapped in mud under a vehicle, surrounded by bodies - some of them children with broken necks and severed limbs. I lost hope of my survival,” she says. Somehow, they clawed their way out.
At least 60 people lost their lives when a massive cloudburst led to flash floods in this remote mountain village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district.
Every survivor here carries a story about escaping from the very jaws of death.
“We stopped at a Maggi shop. People told us to run (because of the cloudburst), but we stayed back, thinking it was safe here,” Devanshi says, narrating her ordeal.
Within minutes, a large mass of mud collapsed over the shop. “Mata saved us,” she repeats as she recounts how her family members and villagers pulled her out of the debris.
She was taken to a hospital along with other family members, where she was given first aid. Sneha from Jammu says she had felt it was all over for her after being washed away and buried under a vehicle. “As we reached our vehicles, we heard a loud bang and saw a cloudburst over the hill,” she recalled.
In no time, a wall of mud, boulders, and trees swept them towards the Chenab River, trapping them.