Termed as one of the most devastating human disasters ever experienced, Orissa has been completely shattered by the worst-ever cyclones of the present century. Little did the people in the coast know that the frenzied storm would bring their lives to an absolute halt at once.
On the early hours of the 29th October, Black Friday, as it will always be known from now, massive and merciless cyclonic storm hit the coastal belt of Orissa killing thousands and displacing millions as if settling a long standing score with the hapless creatures of the coast. Wind blew at an unbelievable velocity of 250-260 km per hour and the turbulent sea rising upto 5-8 meters high with accompanying continuous rain has swept lakhs of houses out of existence.
Such was the fury of nature that nothing except lifeless concrete structures have survived. Children have lost their mothers and not to talk about food, the adults are constantly looking up for the never-reaching food packets. Cattle have died in thousands and other animal casualties are unthinkable.
It is a strange site where the dead and the alive await their respective destinies. The aerial survey says that the coastal Orissa from Puri to Balasore has become an extended Bay of Bengal threatening much more casualties in days to come. With unstoppable and painful human cries and yells, decomposed corpses of human and animals, the coastal districts have turned into a graveyard. Eye witnesses confess that if there is hell anywhere, it is this……it is this…….
The worst affected districts have been Jagatsingpur, Kendrapada, Puri, Khurda, Bhadrakh and Balasore which have been totally de-linked from rest of the country. Bhubaneswar, the capital city, is lying quiet in darkness and all possible links with the outer world has been cut off by this Super Cyclone, as gauged by the meteorological division.
To feed one crore unfed mouths, provide clothes and medicines, rebuild 13.5 lakh homes, it needs an amount of Rs. 7,000 crores, equivalent to four times the state’s annual plan expenditure and then, there are trees to replanted. Even on a huge scale, it will take 3 yrs to replace a tree over tree, each tree costing Rs. 500.
But these numbers and figures tell us nothing about suffering and it is hard to give their pain a statistic. Weeks from now on, Orissa will be an old story, forgotten with time. The concern will vanish like sea did from their homes.
Life will never be the same again. None of the blankets, the candles and milk powder sent can make up for the son washed away, a wife still not accounted for. There will be wounds that relief cannot heal.
But a shoulder, an outstretched hand will help. Adversity brings with it an opportunity, to show that Orissa does not weep alone and rebuilding it is the entire nation’s responsibilities. If we fail them today, we will fail ourselves.
The morning newspapers read loudly that the people in Ersama survived on leaves…. Ersama the worst hit block in Jagatsinghpur district….
We (Ashok, our driver, Suresh, HAM volunteer from Bangalore, Tom and myself) set out to meet people in Ersama, not knowing what is in store for us.
The road from Jagatsinghpur to Ersama was strewn with the debris of the cyclone. In the market place in Ersama, we met Ramesh Pradhan, a young man in his early twenties from Chasapada village, in Ghadabishnupur gram panchayat in Ersama block of Jagatsinghpur district.
He was in the block head quarters to see that the relief materials do not go elsewhere. He took us to his village.
Chasapada lies to the east of Ersama nearly 118 kms away from Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa. The village comprises of seventy households with thirty belonging to Scheduled caste community. Out of these thirty households, according to Ramesh, twenty are landless and they survive on agricultural wage labour in the fields of the general caste people like Ramesh. The average land holding in the villages is 15-20 acres per family. The drive to the village is through paddy fields which prior to the cyclone and floods, would have been lush green. What remains today is the memory and the damaged crops………
The entire village looks desolate and as someone said as if hit by a nuclear bomb. Devastation in all its glory! Today nothing remains except heap of mud and straw instead of houses…. Almost all the livestock was either washed away or is lying dead in the fields…
Pramila Das an old woman walked up to me and hugged me. She was in tears. Her eldest son in law fell victim to the cyclone and flood as tidal waves swept him away along with his buffaloes. Her daughter Basanti is widowed with three small children. They all are trying their best to start life all over again…
Ramseh has graduated in History and till the cyclone struck was working as a Clerk in the local college. The secretary of the village youth group and the local theatre group, Ramesh reminisced the events of the night before the storm with remorse. They were rehearsing to stage a play and after the late night rehearsals, every one went back to their homes and the people from the nearby villages also went back. The next morning brought strong winds and tidal waves entered the village. Ramesh and other young men from the village tried their best to drag the people from the nearby hamlet and villages. But Ramesh couldnot save the girl who had come to participate in the rehearsal and is still missing.
The relief could reach the village only after eight days of the cyclone as there was no approachable road. The Sarpanch of the Gram Panchayat, Brahmananda Pradhan was trying to hoard the relief material. Ramesh along with other villagers went and complained to the Relief officer in the block. Now a three-member committee comprising of the ward member and two villagers are taking stock of the receipt and distribution of the relief materials.
Ramesh in no mood to sit and brood, says ” what has happened has happened and no one can turn the clock back.” He organised relief for his village from the government, contacted the Rashtriya Seva Sangh volunteers to clear the human and animal carcass lying in the village. Carcasses are lying everywhere. A woman has been washed away, her dead body is lying in the village, no one willing to perform the last rites. The villagers said that half a kilometer from their village; hundreds of bodies are lying, still unclaimed or cremated.
As we moved on we met most of the villagers whose lives have been marred by the cyclone. Some of the families are staying in the high school. We met a woman who was feeding her son and another girl child was lying on the floor. She told me that the child is a destitute and enquired whether I can take her with me. The villagers said its that woman’s child but since she is a girl and she is sick, she was not taking care of her. The child looked malnourished and was in a state of shock but no one to care for her not even her own mother!
The children in the village seemed oblivious of the magnitude of the devastation and were merrily playing in the debris. They were a contrast to the children of roadside villages who ran after vehicles with their arms stretched begging for food and clothes. These kids, joyful and merry, posed for me and demanded that I take their photograph.
We also met Sumitra Mallik who lives with her two unmarried daughters. A very outspoken woman, she regrets not sending her daughters to school. Most of the women say that the families prefer to send their sons to schools and for higher education and girls remain at home. But then she says what use it is…. A storm like this devastates our lives. “Are you going to help us rebuild our lives?” She asks with hopes and tears in her eyes and also a smile…..
