When Budheswar Deep, 22, reached a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday night, he truly had lived to tell the tale.
Deep was travelling in a truck with other construction workers from Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district when the vehicle plunged 300 metres into a remote gorge in Anjaw on Monday night.
An injured Deep somehow climbed out of the gorge and walked for two days through treacherous, forested and sparsely populated terrain to reach the BRO camp. Loose soil and the threat of rockfall added to the journey's hazards.
Deep bore grim news — at least 19 of his fellow construction workers had died, and he had seen one survivor, whom he had no way of rescuing.
The accident occurred at Laliang village between Hayuliang and Chaglagam in Anjaw district, which borders both Myanmar and China.
The district administration and the BRO began a search-and-rescue operation on Thursday morning.
Officials in Tinsukia and Anjaw confirmed the death of 19 of the 22 occupants of the truck. Seventeen bodies had been identified till Thursday evening.
The dead were mostly from Tinsukia’s Gelapukhuri area. They had left for Chaglagam on Monday morning, engaged by a private contractor for work relating to a government building. It takes five to six hours to reach Hayuliang from Tinsukia and another 45km to reach the accident site.
A video of Deep receiving first aid shows him narrating his ordeal. He said the incident occurred on Monday night but he was not aware of the exact time.
“There were 22 people in the blue truck…. I fell asleep while listening to songs on my mobile phone. Don’t know how I fell, how I got up and where my mobile phone is. I walked (to the camp). It was very difficult,” he said.
Asked if there were more survivors, Deep said one of the occupants of the truck was alive. "One more was alive. How could I save him when it was difficult to save myself?” he said.
Deep was taken to Tinsukia on Thursday. The official list of the dead has not been shared by the authorities yet.
In the video, as BRO personnel ask Deep if he saw any human settlements during his walk, Deep is heard saying he faced a lot of hardship.
Sources said the deceased were mostly in their twenties. They said those identified till now included Pankaj Manki, 20, Ajay Manki, 30, Gudheswor Deep, 23, Rahul Kumar, 25, Abjay Kumar, 26, Somir Deep, 22, Arjun Kumar, 28, Abhoy Dhuria, 24, Rohit Manki, 20, Dhiren Chariya, 28, Rojoin Nag, 21, Deep Gogala, 28, Ramselok Buna, 26, Samaron Nag, 26, Binay Kumar, 26, Karan Kumar, 26, Junash Munda, 20, Dhirendra Kumar, 22, and Ador Tanti, 24.
The mishap site is isolated and the terrain is perilous, affecting the operation to retrieve the bodies and survivors, if any. The operation involves over 100 personnel, including the army, the Border Roads Organisation, police, volunteers and local villagers. An NDRF team of 30 personnel reached Hayuliang from Dibrugarh on Thursday evening.
“We will resume our rescue efforts on Friday around 4am. We are hopeful to complete the operation on Friday and then conduct the post-mortems before sending the bodies to Assam. Two officials from Tinsukia reached Anjaw today for coordination,” an official said.
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a post on X on Thursday afternoon that he was “deeply pained” by the “terrible accident”.