Mandi's miracle baby

11-month-old baby girl survives flash floods in Himachal, family swept away

- INDO-ASIAN NEWS SERVICE

The catastrophic flash floods triggered by multiple back-to-back cloudbursts, tore through several villages of Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, swallowing everything in their path.

The youngest victim of the calamity is an 11-month-old baby girl, a family’s lone survivor, who desperately awaits maternal warmth to feel safe and confident amid the devastation. A week after the mayhem, that is almost a regular feature in the mountainous state every monsoon largely owing to unplanned infrastructure development, rescuers have been on their toes and risking their lives to bring normalcy in the deluge-battered villages.

One of the villages is Talwara in Parwada panchayat that was hit by the deluge in the wee hours of July 1, that swept away the baby’s parents and grandmother.

Locals say the child was sleeping alone in the house when the tragedy struck.