Seeking grief closure to Ntauchila Village

The mudlslides that erupted from Chilimankhwanje Hill, overlooking Ntauchila Village in Traditional Authority Likoswe in Chiradzulu and washed away part of the village on March 14 2023, taking with them scores of lives, will haunt survivors of the ordeal for a lifetime.

In an interview on Monday, Village Head Ntauchila (real name Andrew Jimu) said they have resigned to fate and are now working on finding closure after police sniffer dogs failed to recover anything on two occasions they were deployed there.

“We, sadly, have to live with the painful reality that no amount of searching will yield anything. While we were lucky to recover and bury 17 of our loved ones, there is no hope of ever finding bodies of 25 others who are missing,” said the village head.

He sorrowfully remembers a Maloya family whose six members were washed away, leaving behind a teenage grandchild.

“We really feel for this child as we do not know how he is going to pick up the pieces after this tragedy,” said Jimu.

Among those to be haunted in their lifetime is Alfred Kanthebwe, in his mid-80s, who was washed away alongside his wife, daughter Gertrude and her nine-year and two-year-old sons. While Kanthebwe was found trapped in shrubs down Chanza stream where the mudslides flowed into, his wife, daughter and her nine-year-old son were found buried in the sand.

But as fate would have it, Gertrude’s two-year-old son has not been seen to-date. 

“Only God knows how I and some members of my family survived,” said Kanthebwe, whose house, like others in the affected part of Ntauchila Village, was swept down by the mudslides on that fateful morning.

Alongside other rescued villagers, Kanthebwe, his wife, daughter Gertrude and her nine-year old son Adriano were rushed to Nguludi Mission Hospital in the district, and later referred to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre.

According to Kanthebwe, Getrude is still nursing Adriano at QECH where he is being treated for fractured bones while his wife, who was at QECH for about a week and a half has been sent back to Nguludi Hospital.

His first-born daughter Enifa Nthupa, whose family is managing his recuperation after being discharged from QECH a week ago, described the experience as horrific.

“Not even a brick remains on where their house stood. The story is the same with other affected families,” said Nthupa whose house is a stone’s throw from the washed away part of Ntauchila Village.

In the midst of the unimaginable boulders and mud that have filled what used to be a bustling Ntauchila Village still stands a borehole which, though providing water to the survivors, will add misery to their memories for years to come. For here, at this borehole, many of those never to be seen again used to meet and share stories of joy and sorrow.

But, according to the village head, the borehole, whose pumping handle was found buried in the course of the mudslides, needs repairing because it is no longer functioning as it used to do.

As if making up for the damage of the borehole, in the course of the deadly mudslides now runs some presumed clean water, hesitant to call it a newly-born stream. Whether this ‘stream’ will run for as long as villagers’ memories last only time will tell. But much as the villagers are in need of water, no one will blame them for shunning this water that has come because of the tragedy.

“Clean though the water looks, the thought of its source is haunting. I do not see anyone having anything to do with it,” said one elderly woman as she stood in disbelief watching the water flow innocently.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy, government and all stakeholders are now talking about reconstruction, but village head Ntauchila minces no words about his stand and that of his subjects, that the least anyone would do is to resettle on this land that swallowed their loved ones.

“It will be thoughtless for anyone to think of resettling here. We hope people understand our agony on this tragedy,” he said, adding that traditional leaders in the area are mobilising their subjects to repair the road to allow well-wishers access the ravaged site with ease.

“We know it was practically difficult for most people to come here and appreciate the level of suffering we have encountered. Our duty is to mend the road,” he said.

As reported elsewhere, when Vice-President Saulos Chilima visited the ill-fated site last Saturday, the air was filled with stench of decomposed matter, suggesting that, probably, the police gave up too early with their sniffer dogs, going by the village head’s story that the dogs sniffed nothing on the two occasions they were deployed there.

Chiradzulu district commissioner (DC) Francis Matewere is on record as confirming the sniffer dogs’ futile effort.

“We found some areas were stinking but after digging, we discovered that it was just garbage,” Matewere told The Nation’s Jonathan Pasungwi a day after Chilima’s visit.

But the DC admitted that last Friday community members recovered a decomposed body of a child, suggesting that continued search efforts could still yield something and offer a proper closure to the grief of a family or two.

For a fact, bodies of the 25 missing people of Ntauchila Village are either lying buried within the village or anywhere between the point the mudslides entered Chanza stream and the Indian Ocean. 

No death is more painful than one for which relatives and friends do not have a chance to pay their last respects to.