Dehradun: Hari Krishna Choudhary is still shaken by the scenes he witnessed after surviving the landslide triggered by a cloudburst in Uttarkashi on Saturday night. Two construction workers were killed, and seven remain missing after their shelter along the Yamunotri National Highway near Silai Bend was destroyed.Choudhary was among 20 of the 29 labourers in the shelter who survived. A delay of just five seconds, he said, would have cost him his life.”It had been raining heavily since 9pm on Saturday, and the river near the construction site was roaring with floodwaters. We were all anticipating something bad while resting inside the makeshift shelter made of tin sheets and plywood. Some of us, including me, were half asleep, while others were awake.”He added, “Around midnight, my uncle, who was also working at the site and in the same shelter, woke me up in fear to show me shoes floating on water inside. We immediately got up from our mattresses on the ground and shouted ‘run’ before rushing to the plywood door. I broke it open with a kick and ran out. Just a few seconds later, a huge gush of water and debris hit the shelter and washed everything away.”Choudhary, a mason from Nepal’s Bardiya who had been working at the resort construction site since Nov, said he still feels like “my heart is pounding outside my chest.”Speaking to TOI over the phone from a village in Uttarkashi where the survivors were given shelter by the local administration, Choudhary said, “The horrific scene of water sweeping others away is still playing before my eyes. We’ll never forget it and will always regret not being able to save our friends. We may never overcome this nightmare.”He added that among those missing is the head mason from Nepal, Roshan Chaudhary, whom he described as “a dear friend and helpful to all.”The fear of something terrible unfolding was shared by everyone nearby, as rain and thunder lashed the region through the night. Pravind Rana, a supervisor at the construction site who has been working there for the past one and a half years, said he returned home to Kupra village on Saturday evening with four other workers.”But we couldn’t sleep at all. Water roared down the hillsides all night amid thunder, rain, and a power outage. Scared, we stayed awake the entire night. It was terrifying. All the villagers were up,” he said.”Around 2am, we learned that some labourers from our site were caught in the heavy downpour. Three carpenters who had arrived from Dehradun just two–three days ago are still missing. I hope they’re alive and rescued safely,” he added.Rana said that by a stroke of luck, many of the labourers had gone home on Friday after taking a few days off. Of the 29 who stayed back, most were workers from Nepal who lived in the shelter while also working part-time at other sites.”It is usual to see mudslides or small landslides in the hills during monsoon, but what we’ve seen since Friday is unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Recalling that night gives us goosebumps,” he said.As the downpour continues, NDRF, SDRF, and police personnel are carrying out search and rescue operations at the site, said officials.