In the pre-dawn darkness of Sunday, Mohammad Latief made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life — though at the time, it seemed the smallest of choices.
Around 4 am, as relentless rain hammered the Lower Muran village in Surankote tehsil of the border Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, he stepped out of his house to shift his car to safer ground.
Minutes later, the sky tore open. A cloudburst sent a wall of debris, boulders, and floodwater crashing down the nearby stream, flattening his family's three-storey home into the earth. Inside were eight members of his family. None of them had time to run.
Latief survived by sheer chance. So did his elder son, who happened to be away in Jammu on work that night. But for the rest of the household, there was no warning and no window to escape. By the time the sun rose over Lower Muran, the spot where Latief's home had stood for years was nothing but a mound of rubble.
Through the day, Latief himself dug alongside villagers and rescue teams, sifting through cement, twisted iron rods and stone in search of his family. Spades and ropes were all they had. By evening, the search had yielded only two bodies – his 60-year-old relative Bano Bi, and his two-year-old grandson, Sofiyan Yasir.
Still missing and feared buried in the debris are his wife, Noor Safia; his sons Sajjad Ahmed, Haqnawaz, and Shahnawaz; his relative Mohammad Akram; and his daughter-in-law Khalida Kausar. The search for them continued till today.
According to Latief's relative Mohammad Aslam, it was the heavy rain that sent Latief out to park his Bolero safely in the village that fateful night. He then walked over to a relative's house nearby. His wife had urged him to wait out the storm there until morning rather than risk the walk back. It was during that brief window — while he sheltered just metres from his own front door — that the cloudburst struck and reduced his home to ruin in moments.
No time to react, no trace left behind
Villagers say the disaster struck with such ferocity that there was simply no time to react. The surge of debris and floodwater damaged several homes, washed away roads, and cut off connectivity to multiple villages in the area. In nearby Sangla village, close to Surankote, the calamity claimed another home — that of Abdul Hameed, who was swept away in the flood along with his wife, daughter, and sister.
Rescue teams recovered the body of one woman by the end of the day; the search for the rest continues. Hameed's house, villagers say, was washed away so completely that not a trace of it remains.
Those who lost their lives in the tragedy:
- Noor Safia (59), wife of Mohammad Latief
- Sajjad Ahmad (16), son of Mohammad Latief
- Haqnawaz Ahmad (10), son of Mohammad Latief
- Shahnawaz Ahmed (13), son of Mohammad Latief
- Khalida (25), wife of Yasir
- Sofiyan (2), son of Yasir Iqbal
- Bano Bi (60), wife of Mohammad Hussain
- Akram (7), son of Mohammad Liaqat
In the neighbouring village of Kanuiyan, heavy rain triggered a flood in the Pulastya river that swept away two shops, a workshop, a vehicle service station, a flour mill and a small single-room mosque built along the riverbank. Around half a dozen vehicles — including a tractor-trolley, a Tata Mobile and a mixer machine — that had been brought in for repairs at the workshop and service station were also lost. Victims said they had taken bank loans to set up these businesses. As the river's water level receded by evening, shopkeepers were seen wading in to retrieve whatever belongings they could salvage.
