Aizawl: At around noon on May 27, 2024, the Hauzel family had a cause for celebration, there was a new addition to the family. The 66-year-old Lalduhthlanga breathed a sigh of relief as his daughter, Lalremruati Hauzel, welcodmed her second child, which was to be his 11th grandchild at the Ebenezer Medical Centre in Kanan locality. She was a healthy girl weighing 3.4kg, a perfect weight for a baby.
Lalremruati’s mother and younger sister, Loretta Lalngaihdami, stayed with her in the hospital till late evening. Her elder sister, Gloria Claire Fanai had also come to see the new baby, but she returned home in Melthum village as she was worried for her children. Melthum is around five kilometres from Aizawl.
Little did they know, as one member was added to the family on Monday, on Tuesday, they would bid goodbye to five family members as they became the victims of the landslides triggered by the cyclone in Mizoram, which has left 28 dead and at least six missing as of Thursday evening.
Later that night, Lalduhthlanga’s youngest daughter, 20-year-old Dorothy Lalruatkimi wrote in their family WhatsApp group, “I am turning off the Wi-Fi,” due to the heavy rain. At home in Melthum were Dorothy Lalruatkimi, her father, Lalduhthlanga, her elder sister, Babie Zoremsiami, and Babie’s two children, Abel Lalmalsawma and Gloria Malsawmdawngkimi and a house guest, Freddie Thantluanga. Loretta and her mother were not home. They were resting in Dinthar at a relative’s house as they had gone to see the new baby, and it was raining too heavily for them to return home to their house in Melthum.
The next day, around 6:30 am, when they heard of the landslides in Melthum village, Loretta woke up and called her family members one by one, but she was unable to get through to anyone. Still, she had hoped, that maybe it was a problem with the mobile network. Due to the rains, the network had been inconsistent the past night.
She and her mother rushed as quickly as they could. They were blocked by landslides in Tlangnuam, but they followed an emergency response force. When they reached the locality of Zuangtui, they were hit with the first tragic news: their father and husband Lalduhthlanga’s body had been retrieved. When they reached the site, Loretta still had hope that her sister and roommate Dorothy Lalruatkimi’s body would be found alive, but when they found her, she was no longer breathing. Later in the day, they found the bodies of her elder sister, Babie Zoremsiami and her two children.
On Thursday morning, Loretta sat in a room filled with green Young Mizo Association benches, the kind of benches that decorate a home on the worst of occasions or the best of celebrations as EastMojo spoke with her. Though her eyes were puffy, she maintained a steady face. There is little in the world that can heal a heart that has said goodbye to five family members in the blink of an eye. Loretta, studying interior design in Kolkata, had just come home a month back for her summer holiday.
“I want the world to know them beyond their names. I have heard of catastrophes happening in our state, and we used to pity them through a number on the TV screen. I do not want my family’s death to go down as a number,” she told EastMojo.
“My sister Babie Zoremsiami was a confident woman. She had won the pageantry when she was in college. She keeps up with everything trending on the internet and was the best mother to her three children,” said Loretta. She also talked about Babie’s two children, saying, Gloria Malsawmdawngkimi had just started getting a grip on the world. She liked spraying perfume and dressing pretty for church. A young genius, the 14-year-old was already in grade ten, a feat not possible for many. The youngest one, Abel Lalmalsawma, was always running about, a young mischief like any kid his age. “He would fall asleep first as he was always tired from running around the house all day,” she said.
Though Loretta is just starting to comprehend the magnitude of her loss, you can easily tell that her younger sister, Dorothy Lalruatkimi, had Loretta’s whole heart. They had been roommates for as long as she can remember.
Dorothy was a K-Pop fan, with her favourite singer being Lee Ji-Eun also known by her stage name, IU. She liked to visit cafés and in her last Instagram post, she posed with a cup of coffee at the Sweet Tooth Bakery & Café in Vaivakawn, writing ‘peace’ in the caption with a K-pop song playing in the background. Most of all, Dorothy was known for her love of books. She liked Murakami and CS Lewis and could be seen spending most of her time in a corner flipping through pages of her favourite authors. “She had a bookshelf. It went down in the rubble with her except for one book, the war novel, ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr. A cousin had borrowed it from her and it is all we have left of her bookshelf,” said her sister.
Dorothy was a fourth-semester student at Hrangbana College. Like many youths her age, she was still confused about her ambitions and was contemplating changing her core to Psychology. She had been a brilliant child, she was just shy of four marks from making it to the top ten list of toppers when she passed her board exams.
Her teachers were hopeful that she would make their college proud by making it to the top ten list at the University level. “She was the most obedient kid you could ever know. Ask anyone, and they will tell you there is no fault you can find with her. She was satisfied with everything, including wearing her elder sister’s hand-me-downs instead of getting new dresses. I think God wanted to have someone like her with Him,” said Loretta.
The Hauzel family had moved to Melthum from Dinthar in Aizawl in February this year. Lalduhthlanga had always dreamt of retiring in a house in a quiet neighbourhood with beautiful views, and his dreams were coming true.
“We were reluctant to move, but my dad wanted to live in a quiet neighbourhood and also rear animals. Just as he dreamt, he looked after 14 pigs and enjoyed the view of the mountains every day,” shared Loretta.
Lalduhthlanga had bought the plot of land in Melthum last year, and after they finished building a house, the family moved in in February.
Among other things, Lalduhthlanga was an ardent football fan, for many decades, he owned a sports shop in Canteen Kual in Dawrpui. He was an official at the Mizoram Football Association and was active in helping his locality form a football team. Due to his back pain, he had to close his shop. However, he never stopped loving the game and was a faithful Manchester United fan.
On the night of May 25, 2024, just two nights before he breathed his last, Lalduhthlanga watched the FA Cup on TV and could not stop smiling when Manchester United scored two goals against Manchester City. As the Red Devils took the trophy home, Lalduhthlanga shared a sticker in their WhatsApp family group saying, ‘Hip Hip Hurray.’
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