There’s a light drizzle and it’s a bit after 11am. At a culvert, the narrow route in Muttil panchayat, Wayanad district, Kerala, diverts from the main road and leads to the public cemetery. It’s become muddy and dangerous with the rain. It winds past little temples and coffee fields before arriving at the graveyard, where about a hundred men are labouring hard to excavate twenty tombs on one end, one after the other.
The mass graves, according to officials, are designated for the unidentifiable body parts of individuals who died in the landslides that occurred on Tuesday, July 30, and destroyed the communities of Chooralmala, Mundakkai, Attamala, and other regions.
A growing pile of such remains at the district’s mortuaries and hospitals compelled them to make the decision to dispose of the body parts that are beyond recognition deformed and disfigured with respect. On Friday night, the number of people killed in the landslides surpassed 300, while more than 200 people are still listed as missing.
In the midst of the chaos at the cemetery, Asharaf, the vice president of the Muttil panchayat, and Sreedevi Babu, the president of the local body, informed HT that the joint director (local self-government department) had called an online meeting late on Thursday night with representatives from eight panchayats to discuss the interment of landslide victims.
“We were told that the 73 body parts retrieved from the river Chaliyar and assumed to have been washed away from the landslide sites are getting worse by the hour. And so it was important to dispose of them properly. Each of the local bodies was directed to dig graves in the respective public cemeteries. We were told to dig up 20 graves, but we have informed the higher-ups that we have enough space to accommodate more bodies,” Asharaf said.
He explained that the DNA samples have been taken from all body parts during autopsies and that available information about each of the remains would be stored beside the respective graves if families claim ownership in the future.
“All protocols including safety measures will be followed in the handling of the remains,” he said.
“To us, these are human beings, rising above caste and religion lines. They are our people, and we must accord them respect. It is an unimaginable tragedy,” added Asharaf.
The number of wooden funeral pyres at a cremation operated by Seva Bharati, the community service branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Meppadi town, was increased from three to ten in light of the increasing number of landslip deaths fifteen km distant.
Wails and cries filled the crematorium on Thursday night when the body of a 19-year-old Mundakkai boy, covered in white cloth, was removed from an ambulance. The victim’s sisters and friends, as well as other grieving family members, wept as a volunteer raised the cloth just above his face. Despite being identified, the body was in a highly decomposed state. After a few minutes of prayer, it was swiftly taken to one of the pyres, where it was consigned to flames.
Santhosh Kumar, an in-charge at the crematorium, told news agency, “Usually, we have 2-3 cremations on normal days. On Wednesday, we did 21 cremations, with eight of them being done simultaneously. We have given word to the officials that we can accommodate as many funerals as we can with the help of volunteers who are ready 24×7. With dozens still missing, we expect to handle more remains in the coming days.”
