It has been raining heavily in Kerala, bringing back memories of the last two years, especially 2018 when rain wreaked massive havoc across the state. And today, was a day of two rain-related tragedies. The day began with one and ended with another.
LANDSLIDE
Early morning, we got the news of a landslide burying the residential quarters of tea garden workers in a place called Pettimudi near the tourist hill station of Munnar in the Idukki district of central Kerala. 18 people died and 52 are missing.
Apparently, the incident happened late last night, as people were asleep. Since communication lines were disrupted, news filtered out very slowly and the enormity of the tragedy became apparent only today morning.
Several places in north Kerala are also battling incessant rain. Since many people have been evacuated, loss of lives has been minimised in those areas, but there is considerable loss of property.
PLANE ACCIDENT
In the evening around 8 pm came the news of a plane accident - an Air India flight from Dubai with 190 people on board skidded off the runway while landing in heavy rain in Karipur airport in Kozhikode in north Kerala, fell into a 35-ft gorge, and broke into two pieces. At least 15 people have died.
TABLE-TOP RUNWAY
This airport is one of the few which has a table-top runway. They are called table-top because the runway is like the top of a table; a raised platform of land, surrounded by a precipice on all sides. This means the plane has limited space to land and the pilot has to be very careful.
I haven't been able to find out how many such airports are there in the world. But there are at least two in India. Besides the one in Kozhikode, where the accident happened today, there is one in Mangaluru in neighbouring Karnataka state.
REPEAT OF 2010
Incidentally, in Mangaluru airport, there was a similar tragedy in May 2010, in which, again an Air India plane from Dubai overshot the runway and fell into a gorge. The plane caught fire killing 158 people; 8 survived. Luckily, in Kozhikode tonight, the plane didn't catch fire, and the fatalities have been minimised.
ALMOST HOME
This flight, which was involved in the accident today, was one of those special repatriation flights -- called Vande Bharat Mission -- that the government has been operating to bring home people who are stuck in various places abroad because of the cancellation of normal flights.
How sad. They must have been waiting for so long to be with their family and friends, and they were almost home.