Eight months after the deadliest landslides in Kerala’s history ravaged Mundakkai and Chooralmala on July 30, 2024, these once-vibrant hamlets in Wayanad’s Meppadi Panchayat stand as eerie ghost towns.

Suhara Joseph, 56, gazes across the Bailey bridge at the rubble where her home once stood, her voice breaking as she tells PTI, “I’m least concerned about the house and properties we lost, but I can’t get over the fact that the people who were so close to us are all gone.” She survived only because she was at a hospital with her husband; her neighbors, who visited them hours earlier, perished.

The disaster, triggered by torrential rains that dumped 572 mm in 48 hours, claimed over 250 lives, with unofficial estimates nearing 400. Today, the region is a desolate expanse of mud and boulders, untouched by new growth, its silence broken only by wandering elephants at night.

Faisal, a frequent visitor, mourns, “This silence is unbearable. Many still remain buried deep somewhere here. This place is like a tomb for our relatives.” He echoes a local plea to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to bar tourism, fearing disrespect to the unmarked graves.

Once a tourist haven with lush greenery and bustling markets, Chooralmala’s three wards—Punchirimattam, Mundakkai, and Chooralmala—now house no residents. Intact homes sit locked, while partially damaged ones hold broken relics of lives lost: flood marks scar walls, and twisted iron bars jut from vanished foundations.

“I knew everyone here, and now there’s no one,” says a Mundakkai estate worker, haunted by memories on his daily commute. Only one tribal family in Punchirimattam defies relocation orders, clinging to their ancestral land.

The local economy, once fueled by tourism, has collapsed. In Chooralmala town, 53 shopkeepers grapple with survival, their livelihoods buried with the debris. “Before, you couldn’t find space to park a bike,” recalls a building owner now peddling coconuts from his battered property.

Despite pleas to the government, aid remains elusive. A ban on disaster tourism, enforced via pass-only access across the Bailey bridge, keeps outsiders at bay, leaving only police, officials, and a handful of locals to roam the stillness.

As Kerala builds a new township on Elstone Estate, launched by Vijayan on March 27, the scars of Mundakkai and Chooralmala endure—a brown, lifeless testament to nature’s fury and a community’s unshakable grief.