The landslide on August 18 when the spur of a hill on the left bank of the Madhmaheshwar broke off and slid into the river, killed 39 people and wiped out Bheti, Sem and Tongar villages.

The massive landslide dug a crater in the river bed and threw up a mass of earth which sheared up the opposite bank for more than a kilometre engulfing villages. ``Some of my friends were sleeping in a village beside one of the destroyed villages and they said their doors flew open due to the air blast from the landslide,'' says Ranjit Rawat, a resident of Ukhimath.

``The landslide occurred in the middle of the night. There was a noise like thunder and the earth quaked. We stayed huddled indoors out of fright. In the morning we saw what hadhappened and found not a drop in the river on the Jheel's downstream side,'' says Chaita Singh, 64, of Mansoona. About 9,750 people are still living on the unstable hill side.

Authorities say they are reluctant to leave as they cannot bring along their livestock.