Sabang (West Midnapore), June 23: Watching his house shredded to rubble by floodwaters, Gourhari Das can’t even call the sight “unimaginable” because he has seen it 21 times before.

Yet the 22nd time has been the worst of all — because it happened after 30 years.

The last time his house was washed away, the village grocer was 46. He is now 76 and heads a family of 12, including four hungry and cold grandchildren aged six years to 18 months, all of whom have been left without a roof over their head.

“I never imagined I would have to see this sight again. When our ancestral house, built on low-lying land deeper inside the village, was washed away for the 21st time in 1978, I had decided enough was enough,” he said.

Das bought a plot 1km away on higher ground, off the state highway that runs past Dehati village in Sabang, 180km from Calcutta. He raised it further and built a new house.

“For the past 29 years, the courtyard would get flooded but the water would not enter the rooms.”

Only the gutted frame of the two-storey, mud-walled, tin-roofed house now stands.

“I believe in rebirth, but I don’t want to be born in this area again. Floods are common in Sabang and I’ve seen at least 40. But nothing like this one,” Das sobbed.

His eldest son Ajoy, 40, said the family wasn’t worried when non-stop rain submerged the highway on Tuesday night and power supply was switched off.

“That’s an annual feature during the rains. But by dawn, water had entered the rooms from under the door. By 9am, it was knee-deep,” Ajoy said.

Das, his wife Seema, 65, and their three sons and daughters-in-law climbed on their beds with the children.

“From the window, we could see at least 10 feet of water on the highway. We spent the day on the beds and ate puffed rice for lunch and dinner. But the water kept rising,” Das said. “By night it was waist-deep. The walls showed cracks. I was terrified.”

Ajoy and younger brother Sanjoy, 35, announced it was no longer safe inside the house — it might collapse any moment.

“We held on to one another and stepped out. Carrying the children on our heads, we waded through neck-deep water to the cowshed. We climbed on top of its sloping tin roof and sat like ghosts in the dark, shivering,” Sanjoy said. “The children were cold and clung tightly to us. They kept crying.”

Ajoy’s wife Dipika, 34, said the family must start life from scratch again. “We had 500kg of rice stocked. It’s all gone. All our mattresses, blankets and clothes have been washed away.”

Nothing remains of the grocery shop, on the ground floor of the house, or its “goods worth about Rs 30,000”.

The water began receding on Thursday. “On Friday morning, we climbed down from the cowshed roof. My house lay in pieces before me, like a phantom from the past,” Das said.