Rescuers have so far pulled out 11 bodies from the ruins, where the sparsely populated, scenic village of over 200 people had once nestled over half-a-kilometre radius. A baby was among those found under the rubble on Thursday. His cold, lifeless body was retrieved after rescuers from the Army's 19 Gharwal Rifles spotted his hands from cracks in the mound of the ruins. A table clock found had stopped at 11:50am, recording the exact time when the mudslide devoured the village.
A handful, sent to safer areas as incessant rains alarmed the residents, survived the disaster that turned the village into a mound of mud enmeshed with mangled tin, broken windows, doors, tattered clothes, shoes and even body parts.
"Early morning rains threatened the residents forcing the elderly to send the younger people away to safer places. We estimate two to three people were inside each house when the mudslide buried them alive,'' said DIG Udhampur-Reasi Gareeb Dass.
Ganesh Singh is among the lucky survivors, who survived the disaster as he was away in Jammu. He showed a group of journalists, who managed to reach the village, a boulder where his house once stood. Singh's father was the only one besides him in his family, who survived as he was working in his fields when the rest of their family was buried.
Singh's brother had made a distress call to him around 11.45am, saying their house had "developed cracks and was sinking''. Singh desperately kept calling back but no one had survived to take his calls. A gutted Singh trekked back to his village to find some solace as he found his father alive. Six members of his family were not as lucky.
The only road to the village too has been washed away, making rescue work even tougher. A muddy, slippery mountainous trekking route is the only way to reach the village on foot even as roads connectivity is being restored. It is awash with slush, making sharp cliff along the way even more menacing.
Ramesh Chander, sarpanch of the nearby Panjar village, said they helplessly watched as the mountain came crashing down while many were trying to run for their lives along with their livestock. "We immediately rushed to help with bare hands but could not do much,'' he told TOI. He said the Army reached a day later by the time it was too late to find survivors.
Another survivor, Tirith Ram, said bodies of three members of his family had been recovered while nine others were still missing.
A police source posted at the nearby Panchari police station, requesting anonymity, said some people could have been saved had the rescuers reached on time. "Continued landslides prevented them from coming. Even the Army and NDRF teams reached late.''
Saddal is among the remote villages in the Jammu region that has been devastated by landslides and floods triggered by incessant rains last week. Officials have put the toll at 151. But the real extent of the damage would be clear when officials are able to reach the affected areas, which are inaccessible even during the best of the times.
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