The Night of Death | Part – 4

That family stayed with us for a few days and returned to their village once the floodwaters receded. The flood had devastated the entire area.

The whole marketplace and half the village had been underwater for two to three days. Many familiar people had drowned. Some couldn’t escape when water suddenly rushed into their homes. They tried to take shelter in their attics, but the flood was so massive that it submerged half the houses in the village. When the waters covered entire homes and people couldn’t escape through the attic, many were trapped and died there. Their bodies were later found on those same lofts.

That night, the entire Konkan coast experienced an unprecedented, record-breaking downpour resulting flooding in areas like Pali and Nagothane was severely worsened by a high tide that occurred on the evening of July 23. This created a backwater effect, preventing floodwaters from rivers like Savitri, Gandhari, and Amba from discharging into the sea. The Amba River was one of them. It flows from Khopoli, Pali, Jambhulpada, Vakan, Nagothane, then onward through Poynad and Wadkhal, eventually meeting the Dharamtar Creek. The meeting of multiple rivers (Savitri, Gandhari, Kal, and Nageshwari) near Mahad created a bottleneck, as the sheer volume of water from the Sahyadri mountains reached the low-lying plains almost simultaneously.

When the water surged into the rivers with tremendous force. This wall of water rushed down to Pali, Jambhulpada, and Vakan. Pali, being a little farther from the river, suffered less damage. But Jambhulpada was completely caught in the flood’s grip. In the middle of the night, the torrent crashed into the village. The entire village was submerged and destroyed. Very few people survived by sheer luck. Jambhulpada village was obliterated.

Next to our house lived a retired school teacher from Jambhulpada. He and his wife had rented the house beside ours while repairs were being done on their village home. Their grandchildren had come to stay with them for the holidays, and they had brought them to Nagothane because Jambhulpada was mostly an Adivasi settlement, and the children would get bored there. The kids had no parents, only their grandparents looked after them. Sadly, that very day the elderly couple had gone to Jambhulpada, and they were never seen again.

On the Mumbai–Goa highway near Wakan bridge, long lines of vehicles were stuck on both sides. At Vakan, the river had risen so much that water flowed over the bridge during the night. The enormous wall of floodwater hit the bridge. Water rushed over it from both sides with tremendous force. Vehicles parked on either side were swept away in one blow. Several ST buses traveling to and from the Konkan were among them. Many lives were lost. After the floods receded, numerous vehicles were found tangled in the riverbed, and the bodies inside were unrecognizable.

Next to our house lived a retired schoolteacher from Jambhulpada. He and his wife had rented the house beside ours while repairs were being done on their village home. Their grandchildren had come to stay with them for the holidays, and they had brought them to Nagothane because Jambhulpada was mostly an Adivasi settlement, and the children would get bored there. The kids had no parents, only their grandparents looked after them. Sadly, that very day the elderly couple had gone to Jambhulpada, and they were never seen again.

On the Mumbai–Goa highway near Wakan bridge, long lines of vehicles were stuck on both sides. At Vakan, the river had risen so much that water flowed over the bridge during the night. The enormous wall of floodwater hit the bridge. Water rushed over it from both sides with tremendous force. Vehicles parked on either side were swept away in one blow. Several ST buses traveling to and from the Konkan were among them. Many lives were lost. After the floods receded, numerous vehicles were found stuck in the riverbed, and the bodies inside were unrecognizable.

The entire village and surrounding region were devastated. Most people abandoned the village because it was uninhabitable. There was mud everywhere, a terrible stench, and the threat of disease. Restoring electricity to the village took a full month.

Two days later, my uncle came from Mumbai with a car. He brought groceries, biscuits, cucumbers, and whatever food items he could manage. Many parts of the highway were still flooded, and he struggled to reach Nagothane. His help was invaluable to all of us.

We, too, decided to leave the village as there was no electricity.  My father arranged a tempo through his contacts in Pen. We loaded all our belongings into it and left the village. We moved to Khopoli, where my father was allotted a spacious government bungalow.

It took two years for Nagothane to be rehabilitated and rebuilt. The village was resettled.

We never met that family again. They never reached out. Life moved on.

Everyone’s life in that village took a new turn. What I had done that night though I didn’t know how to swim, I had still risked my life and stepped into the floodwaters, choosing instinct over consequence—changed me forever. Rescuing that baby and his mother was something none of us could have anticipated. That split-second decision taken without worrying about the consequences, saved a family from disaster. Going through all of that changed me too. I had witnessed nature’s fury from terrifyingly close. I realized how insignificant human life is before the forces of nature. In a way, the experience brought a kind of introspection into my personality. I became quite introverted after that.

That flood cost me a year of college. I enrolled again in a new college at Khopoli. leaving the past behind and beginning again.

But some nights after that…The river was flowing through my dreams.