Double whammy for Kerala woman: Family killed in landslides, fiance critical after accident

Wayanad (Kerala):  Shruti, a 24-year-old still grappling with the trauma of losing her entire family in the recent catastrophic landslides in Kerala’s Wayanad district, faces yet another devastating blow.

Her fiance met with a severe accident on Tuesday and is being treated at a private medical college hospital here. He remains in an extremely critical condition.

What next is probably the question that arises before Shruti.

Tragedy had struck Shruti, an accountant at a hospital in Kozhikode district, on July 30 when her family of nine, including her parents and younger sister were killed in the landslides that struck Chooralmala and Mundakkai villages of Meppadi panchayat.

Her only support during the tragic times was 27-year-old Jenson, with whom she had got engaged on June 2 after a 10-year-long courtship.

On August 29, the couple had visited the Puthumala graveyard where some of her family were buried and had reaffirmed their commitment to each other.

Days later, on September 10, she suffered another shock when Jenson got critically injured when his car collided head-on with a private bus and is currently battling to stay alive.

Shruti and some other family members of Jenson, who were also travelling in the same car, also got injured in the accident. However, according to doctors at Dr Moopen Medical College here, Jenson’s condition is extremely critical.

The doctors, on Wednesday, told TV channels that he was brought to the hospital in critical condition with his vital signs very low, excessive bleeding from his nose and bleeding inside and outside his brain.

When the couple had reaffirmed their commitment to each other, Jenson, who works for a car cleaning company in the district, had said that he promised himself that he would never leave the side of his school-time friend Shruti when she told him about the tragedy that had befallen her family.

The couple, initially set to tie the knot in December with fanfare, were planning to have a simple court-registered marriage in September.

Shruthi lost about Rs 4 lakh in cash and around 15 ‘sovereigns’ of gold along with her newly-built home that was washed away in the landslides that claimed over 200 lives.