Wayanad bypoll: Emotional scenes at polling booths for landslide survivors
Wayanad(Kerala) (PTI): Emotional scenes were witnessed at the polling stations set up for the survivors of the landslides, which hit the hill district in July this year, to cast their votes in the bypoll for the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency when they saw their neighbours and close friends after a long time since the disaster.
The survivors hugged each other with joy and then broke into tears as they recalled how they all lived together as one big happy family before the landslides swept away everything on July 30.
One elderly man broke into tears as he narrated how the residents of Punchirimattam, Chooralmala and Mundakkai villages, which were completely destroyed in the landslides, celebrated every festival together irrespective of their religions.
His friend, whom he met on the bus that was arranged to ferry voters of the landslide-affected to polling stations, hugged and consoled him, saying "don't cry, everything will turn out to be fine".
Another woman said after the landslides, the survivors were relocated or rehabilitated to different parts of the district.
"So, when we see them after such a long gap, the first thing we ask is where you are living and not how you are doing," she told media.
A special free vehicle service has been provided for landslide survivors to reach the polling stations from the various places they are temporarily residing at.
Over 200 people were killed in the landslides that swept away the three villages and destroyed hundreds of homes.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
