What started as a drizzle on the morning of July 26 turned into torrential rain by the night. Mohammed Raheem living in Projectnagar village of Mulugu district in north-eastern Telangana, decided to shift his flock of sheep to an adjacent hilly area.
Even as the rain came down in sheets, the shepherd stepped out of the bamboo-roof hut. He took his oldest child, a six-year-old son, Sadiq Pasha, to the elevated place, asking his wife Fauzia to remain in the hut and take care of the other two children, a 4- and 3-year-old, Tanvir and Saddam.
While some, even the elderly, walked up to the forest nearby, others went up the double-storey school building. “The mother with her two tiny tots remained in the hut. She was unaware that the hut was in a low-lying area,” Mulugu Sub-Divisional Police Officer N. Ravinder recalled.
