A service outside the church

ON July 26, Father Johnson Lawrence had just finished the afternoon service at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Malad West, when he saw hundreds of people from the nearby Valani hutment colony - a slum and low income housing area - scurrying out of their homes. "It was raining heavily and the road had begun to flood. People were trying to get out as fast as they could. Unfortunately because the lanes were narrow and the water was gushing in many of them found it difficult to get out." Lawrence realised something was drastically wrong. He asked some policemen if they could help organise a raft, but they pleaded helplessness. By then electricity and telephone links had snapped.

"The nearby nullah had overflowed. Houses were getting submerged. People were trapped. The water was almost 12 feet (4 metres) high and a strong current had developed. This was making it difficult for people to swim out." Lawrence ran out and gathered some youth from the neighbourhood for rescue work. "We jumped into the water but the current was so strong that even after swimming for 10 minutes we were not moving ahead. I was getting desperate." The team went back to the Church where restoration work was going on, to fetch ropes. One boy found a sort of wall to stand on. From there, they threw a rope towards the people and pulled them out.

By midnight Lawrence and his team had managed to rescue about 100 people. At 2 a.m., he said, the Navy brought a rowboat but owing to the strong current the boat hardly moved forward. At 7 a.m., the Navy came back without rescuing a single person. "We went back to the flooded colony, swimming in sewage water, which was stinking of animal and human faeces. We saw bodies float by. It was an awful sight." But Lawrence just wanted to save as many people as possible and get them to the safety of the Church compound. Later, in the morning when the tide was low, water receded and they were able to lead about 1,000 people to the Church premises. "We carried the children on our shoulders because the water was still chest high." By the afternoon of July 27, Lawrence and his team had brought 2,500 people into the Church. With the help of neighbours, they were able to give the slum-dwellers tea and some food.

"The neighbours were generous. For three days people from all over Malad came with milk, bread, provisions and clothes. We were able to save people but I have to thank hundreds of other families who helped us after that." Lawrence says most of the people in the area worked as daily-wage earners making knick-knacks. "They have lost their livelihood as all their raw material was washed away in the floods." Lawrence hopes to work with non-governmental organisations and other volunteers to help restore their lives.