By Cosmos Sangma
Tura, Oct 6: Search and rescue teams have retrieved the bodies of a teacher and his teenage son who were swept away by water currents while attempting to cross a flooded road in Dimapara on Friday evening.
The bodies of Bijoy S Sangma (44 years) and his 13 year old son Wian Chigado R Marak were fished out from a water logged low lying area at Sonagre village of Dimapara on Sunday morning by search teams from the police and state disaster rescue force.
The deceased father was a school teacher and his son was a class VI student of Seempara Upper Primary SSA School, under Gasuapara. They hailed from Daren Agal village, near Tura, but were residents of Rongkhon Songgital locality of Tura.
Despite the dangers and against the advice of villagers not to attempt a crossing, the teacher tried to drive his WagonR car through the flooded road. The vehicle with the two occupants were carried away by the flood waters.
While the vehicle was recovered on Saturday afternoon from the Bugai river downstream, the bodies of the teacher and his son were found almost two days later.
The father-son duo were returning from school when they encountered a flooded road below the Dimapara bridge. Heavy rains since Thursday night had swelled the nearby Bugai river forcing it to breach its banks and inundate the low lying areas and the main road.
Landslide victims bodies retrieved in Rongjeng, Gasuapara
The bodies of a mother and daughter who were killed in a mudslide while asleep in their home at Rongjeng Gongdop have been retrived by rescue teams of the SDRF and villagers on Sunday itself.
Victims Amerin K Marak and her daughter Manase K Marak were asleep when heavy rains early morning triggered the mudslide.
In Hatisia Songmong village of Gasuapara, South Garo Hills, where an entire family of seven people. Including women and children, were buried alive in a major landslide on Friday morning, teams of NDRF and state SDRF have managed to bring out three of the bodies.
The painstaking operation to locate the bodies from a mountain of mud has been underway since Friday, with little success.
Meghalaya legislators from the South Garo Hills region, Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma, Chokpot MLA Sengchim N Sangma and Baghmara MLA Kartush Marak, are currently at the site of the accident. The place of incident falls under Baghmara assembly constituency.
