Assistant Commissioner of Police ( North sub-division) Bheema Rao and the SHO of Kancharapalem Police station Raghuveer Vishnu, have seen a number of violent deaths in the shape of accidents or murder during their long career, but for both the officers, one incident appears to haunt them the most.
It is the single hand protruding from the debris of rocks and mud gesturing for help at Sanjeevaiah Nagar near Thatchetlapalem. “The man died in front of us and we could do nothing to save him, despite he calling for help with his fingers and hand, as his entire body was buried under heaps of rocks,” Raghuveer Vishnu said.
Five persons, including an infant, were killed, and six persons were injured when a landslip occurred on the night of December 20, 2015, at Sanjeevaiah Nagar Colony. The victims were crushed in their sleep under boulders and tonnes of mud after a thundershower.
The incident has not only shocked the police officers and those who were involved in the rescue operation, but has created fear among all the residents who live on the hill slopes in the city.
Danger zones
Post the Sanjeevaiah nagar colony incident, a committee comprising officers from the Revenue Department and the GVMC, has preliminarily identified about 15 hotspots or colonies located on the hill slopes in various areas such as Kaparada, Thatchetlapalem, Hanumanthawaka, Arilova, Malkapuram and Gajuwaka.
According to Collector N. Yuvaraj, almost all the hill slope colonies are on occupied revenue lands.
“Post enumeration we have received about 65,000 applications for regularisation and of them about 60 per cent are on the hill slopes, which makes about 39,000 families,” Mr. Yuvaraj told The Hindu .
Despite living on the edge, the people are a divided lot. “Every time it rains or during the monsoon or when there is a depression close to our coast, we live in fear and have sleepless nights. But still we do not want to shift,” said S. Apparao a resident of Hanumanthawaka.
According to GVMC Commissioner Praveen Kumar, many of them have invested between Rs. 5 and 7 lakh and now they do not want to shift, despite our insistence.
But a few like Appalaraju of Sanjeevaiah Nagar, would like to shift, but the authorities concerned have not come out with a good offer so far.
RDO report soon
Admitting that the RDO’s report on listing the high-risk families and danger zones is yet to be finalised, Mr. Yuvaraj, said action will be initiated once the report is ready.
The district authorities have designed a three-pronged strategy to mitigate the issue.
According to Mr. Yuvaraj, the first way will be to regularise the sites of the occupied land so that the residents will be able to take bank loans and build safer homes and use some amount of funds to reduce the danger levels.
The second is to shift all high risk residents to safer zones and the third will be to clear all the hill slopes if the residents agree on alternate sites and construct a boundary wall along the slopes to avoid further occupation.
But all the plans are in the proposal stage and yet to see the light of implementation.
Lack of equipment
According to the police and the fire men, the rescue process at Sanjeevaiah Nagar was slow and tedious, because of lack of expertise and equipment.
Collector N. Yuvaraj admitted that the Fire Department is ill-equipped to handle such eventualities and the proposed SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) is yet to take a shape.
