From Prosperity to Rubble: Wayanad’s Landslide Survivors Show the World What True Resilience Looks Like

One year ago, the scenic hills of Chooralmala and Mundakkai in Wayanad turned into a graveyard overnight. The landslide of July 30, 2024, wiped out nearly 300 lives and erased entire villages from the map.

Today, the landscape is hauntingly quiet — ghost towns with barely any signs of life, except a lone tribal family still clinging to the land. But amid this silence, stories of heartbreak and resilience echo louder than ever.

Naufal lost 11 family members that day. Abroad when the landslide struck, he returned to nothing — no home, no family, no farmland. Refusing to walk away, he stayed and built a small hotel in Meppadi. Its name: July 30, a tribute to the loved ones he lost. “It was their dream for me to start this. Now I run it for them,” he says.

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Children orphaned in the disaster are rebuilding, too. Five of them now live with relatives under the Kinship Foster Care Programme. The pain is still fresh, but they’re smiling again, attending school, and adjusting to new homes with quiet strength.

Yet, survival hasn’t been kind to all. Annayan, once a prosperous farmer making Rs 25 lakh annually, now drives an autorickshaw. His land, once rich with coffee crops and rental income, is now classified as unfit for anything but farming — yet even that’s denied to him.

He lives in a rented house and earns Rs 200 a day, battling bureaucracy to reclaim a sliver of his past life. “Let me farm, or take the land and pay me. Don’t leave us like this,” he pleads.

One year later, Wayanad is not just a site of disaster — it’s a symbol of human endurance. From orphaned children to shattered families, these survivors are proving that even in the face of absolute ruin, the will to live and rebuild can never be buried.

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