TEAM HERALD
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VASCO: After an eight-day ordeal at Nako in Himachal Pradesh, Ashwin Shetye, a biker who got caught in the natural calamity, finally reunited with his family at Vasco on Wednesday.
Speaking to Herald at Dabolim airport, Shetye recalled the difficulties he had had to face at Nako till he reached Vasco.
“After staying at Nako on June 16, my friends and I proceeded on our adventure journey on June 17, but to our luck, an elderly villager advised us not to travel at night,” recalled Shetye.
“Paying heed to the advice of the villager, we spent the night at Nako and the next morning, we witnessed heavy snowfall accompanied by rain. The villagers informed that such weather is repeated after almost 10 years and later in the day, we came to know about the landslide at Uttarakhand.
“On June 19, we started our journey backwards, but had to give up and return to Nako as the roads were covered with boulders. The food supply in the village was almost over as the trucks which used to supply the village with food got trapped along the road,” added Shetye.
“We were out of money, but the kind villagers provided whatever little food they had with them free of cost and the hotel where we were staying allowed us to stay free of cost for three days,” he said.
Shetye said his mobile phone drained off, but to his luck, one of his friends had a mobile phone, which he used to charge on solar power, and through his friend’s mobile, he managed to contact his family in Vasco.
“For almost four days, my friends and I used to leave Nako at 5.30 am and walk up to the closest helipad with a hope that we would be airlifted to safety. However, our hopes were shattered as the armed forces on the first three days airlifted only the foreigners, leaving behind elderly and the sick children,” said Shetye.
“On the fifth day, we were airlifted to safety to a place called Reckong Peo and on the same day we were shifted to Poo, from where we hired a taxi and proceeded to Shimla. Later, we went to Delhi from there, I flew back to Goa,” said Shetye.
