JOIN USA boy under focus as Idukki dam's shutters open
As the shutters of the Idukki dam at Cheruthoni were opened after three years on Tuesday, a six-year-old boy of Cheruthoni town was also under the focus.
Soooraj, son of Vijayraj, was the little boy who was being carried by a rescue personnel who ran across the Cheruthoni bridge as it was getting submerged in the water that gushed in from the Idukki dam during the 2018 floods - a telling image of the 2018 floods that literally submerged Kerala.
Sooraj, who was three then, was suffering from fever. The family was staying close to the bridge and they have to cross the bridge to go to the hospital. The entire locality was facing calamities. As Sooraj's father rushed him to hospital, the dam water already reached the top of the bridge. As he stayed helplessly, a NDRF personnel took the kid from him and ran across the bridge - a race against the gushing water.
On Tuesday when the dam's shutters were being opened the Cheruthoni town was quite relaxed as, unlike in 2018, the authorities took adequate precautions and released the dam water gradually this time.
Sooraj was among the scores of people who thronged to see the water coming. His father Vijayraj took him to the spot as the kid insisted on seeing it.
The harrowing sight of the bridge being swollen by the dam water as soon as they cross it in 2018 still haunts Vijayaraj.
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