Alappuzha (India) – There have been heavy rains and floods in the southern Indian state of Kerala in the past few days. Because an important appointment was coming up and the streets were flooded, a couple from Alappuzha had to reschedule: They sailed in a saucepan to their wedding to the temple, which was about half a kilometer away.
There is a video circulating on the Internet that shows a couple in solemn attire in a huge round pot being pulled through the water by two men. A photographer tries to capture the water ride for the wedding album. “We should have booked a boat instead of a car,” the Hindustan Times quotes a man from the background. The newspaper was unable to verify the video.
The groom was of the same opinion: Actually they wanted to organize a small boat, but that didn’t work, Akash Kunjumon told the medium “The Hindu” – so they tried the saucepan. The hall in which they married was also flooded – just not the stage on which a priest trusted them. “It has become a wedding that we could never have imagined,” the bride told reporters on Monday after the ceremony at Panayannurkavu Devi Temple.
Heavy rain in South India
The wedding couple in the saucepan was one of the few beautiful scenes that happened in Kerala in the past few days. At least 35 people have died there since Saturday in connection with the heavy rain. Most of them died in two landslides over the weekend. Houses were torn away, people were buried under mud and rubble, local media reported. Some people were swept away by the floods and drowned.
The television showed dramatic images: a two-story house that fell into a flooded river, roads and bridges that were destroyed, and trees that were uprooted. A warning was issued for several dams that they were full and that there was danger.
In the meantime, the dam water could slowly be drained and thousands of people from low-lying areas near the river could be temporarily brought to safety in camps, according to a statement from the office of Kerala Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. However, the weather service warned of at least three more heavy rainy days from Wednesday.