Floods brought boulders. That saved most Chasoti locals

CHASOTI (KISHTWAR): The stream that villagers once crossed casually on their way to the fields turned into a roaring wall of water on Aug 14. It carried boulders, timber and slush down the slope, smashing into the edge of the hillside settlement. Nine houses and three temples were razed. Then, abruptly, the surge stopped a few metres short of the govt primary school, where 40 children were rehearsing for Independence Day. The school, barely 30 metres from the stream, became the line that separated devastation from survival, as the debris lodged into the earth and shielded 70-odd houses below it.

That chance barricade saved most of Chasoti’s 400 residents. Of the 68 deaths confirmed so far, only 10 were villagers, with four more still missing -- 90% of those killed or presumed dead were outsiders — pilgrims and visitors who had come for the Machail Mata yatra .

Survivors remember the noise before they saw the water. “It was terrifying. We thought everything would be washed away, but the boulders stopped the flow from reaching most houses,” Mohan Singh, a farmer who lost a cousin, told TOI. The difference between life and death, he said, was measured in the few metres where the flood halted above the schoolyard.

For Sewa Ram, 62, and his wife, Panna Devi, 57, the survival of their family was an accident of timing. Their joint household of 10 — two sons, their wives and four grandchildren — had crossed to the other side of the stream that morning. When they returned, their three-storey house was a shell, stripped down to a frame where only the skeleton of a window remained. The only casualty was Khumbu Devi, Sewa’s elder sister who had stayed back. “We escaped because we were away,” Panna said, her grandchildren playing near the ruins.

Elsewhere, survival was just as precarious. At least 50 cars were parked near the narrow bridge across the stream when the flood hit. Anil Kumar, 17, and Pankaj Kumar, 16, saw drivers abandon their vehicles and run. “The sound was like nothing we had heard before,” Pankaj recalled. “We could not see the water at first, only hear it. Then it was everywhere.”

In the days that followed, the village turned foul. Mud caked the lanes, food stores rotted inside kitchens, and the air carried the stench of decay. Rescue teams dug with earthmovers and shovels, pulling out bodies from silt and, at times, body parts from under the rocks. “Most of the people here had a miraculous escape,” said Pushpa Devi. “But these images, these scenes give us nightmares. A pall of gloom has descended on the village.”

The damage extended beyond homes. Farming on the terraced slopes was already fragile; now the fields lie buried in sludge, maize stalks snapped mid-growth. More than 30 eateries that fed pilgrims during the yatra were swept away, along with hand mills that families used to grind flour. The pilgrimage, which began on July 25 and was to end on Sept 5, has been suspended. Last year, about 3 lakh pilgrims visited the shrine.

With crops and stalls gone, villagers say there is nothing left to live on. “Most of our people have lost their livelihoods,” said Sakhsi Devi. “We have nowhere to go. Any fresh floods will leave us devastated.”

Demands for relocation have grown louder than calls for relief. “It is unsafe for us to live here,” said Roshan Lal, 66, who lost a cousin. “We should be shifted elsewhere.” Govind Rathore added: “No amount of money can make us feel safe here. We want land in Jammu where we can live without fear.”