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NEHI
Introduction

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DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Orissa
After Effect
Gujarat
After Effect
MANAGEMENT OF INFORMED SYSTEM
Higher Edu.
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Statements

The Killer Cyclone

Orissa is called a rice bawl of India. The plain of the coastal Orissa is a low land barely some meters up the sea level. The climate is humid and the temperature moderate. Almost each year this area experiences some cyclone, flood or drought and the inhabitants have developed a level of resistance and immunity to these situations. This was the reason even after the announcement about the cyclone by the Indian Meteorological Department; the people did not pay much heed to it. No body knew about the severity of the killer cyclone on 29th of October and its duration, which was about 48 hours. One can easily imagine that it was more than the titanic situation: the continuous and heavy rain with cyclone speed ranging from 260 to 300 km/h and the sea tides submerging hundreds of kms of coastal side. This time around 23 to 24 thousand squire km area is affected by the cyclone. Unfortunate enough, more than 80 per cent of people inhabiting in this severely effected region live under mud and straw built houses in small villages. Lakhs and lakhs of such houses have been damaged completely. Within hours hundreds of villages submerged under the seawater and being part of the same soil, made it even difficult to locate the exact place and to search for the remnants for those who survived. The death toll reached around 20000 to 25000. Being low land region, water receding was very slow and the villages remain under water for weeks. The survivors got hardly any help for many days and kept on fighting for life. They were eating leaves to stay alive. Being surrounded by water all around and out of starvation, they were locating their houses and digging meters in search of their rice containers. Probably they were unaware that the containers were also not waterproof as their houses. Some of them got only soaked rice. We found holes in the mud in search of rice in villages and utensils and other articles inside water. The days are far when they will have again the same kind of mud built houses and to think of model or cyclone-resistant houses is beyond their cognition now. Those survived in Paradweep, Ersama and Buridipantal like highly affected areas stayed with corpses and carcasses day and night. We have found decaying corpses, some unnoticed, some half burnt at many places.

The Team:

The natural calamity, no matter in which part of the globe, the cyclone ravaged Orissa, far and difficult for the students of Delhi University to visit, no preparation, no cash, no material, parents will not allow to take risk; who will be ready to go and how many? Many such questions. The students were getting restless from within and so all these question cropping up in informal discussions. Plans were made, collection process started and in the process a consensus has been brought about to go to the affected area and volunteer. A team of 15 students was constituted for this purpose. Fortunately, there were 7 or 8 students from Orissa itself and so no problem in communicating with the local people. We entered the cyclone hit area from the side of Rajathgarh and Machepura and from there itself we could see the ravaged fields and forests and felt the intensity of the cyclone, a kind of hollowness. The train was moving very slow and we could hear. The painful enchants of two blinds.

Kaahin ki he bhagwaano;
Kala eRe hinni maano.
Aghoru jaani naa thili;
Tumbh naame kashana.
(Why, 0 God, did you give us so much pain? We did not know it before that your name carries so much pain with it)

It took more than 60 hours to reach the capital of Orissa (Bhubneshwar), since the train routes of affected areas were still not functioning. We encountered the paralyzed state machinery and a stand still bureaucracy. It was inevitable near the magnitude of the calamity. Some officials sitting at the Kalinga Stadium for the co-ordination of the relief materials. Anyhow, after great difficulty we got a truck and started for Bhadrak, one of the flood-affected districts in coastal Orissa, about 130 kms from Bhubneshwar.
In Bhadrak, the concerned collector advised us to visit Basudevpur, a block around 10 km from the sea. We finally reached to the block, but caught under highly unpredictable situation. The local leaders were, just ready to take us in their own respective villages, since panchayat election was near. The Block development Officer (BDO), the Inspector of the local police station and all other sensible people seemed quite afraid of these local leaders and refused to tell us which are the villages most affected, for they did not want to own enmity with them. So we finally decided ourselves to go and see the villages first. Hundreds of people around the truck and we were getting the impression that if we don't reach the affected people soon, the truck will be looted by these people, most of them local leaders. Anyhow three of us managed to cover about 10 km by cycle and finally got a village named Churamani, a community of fishermen.

The People:

The people of coastal Orissa usually do not wear upper part. The male wears only a dhoti and the female a sari. Their needs and requirements are very limited. Only a small house with trees and fields all around. Small pools nearby the villages are their part of life. Fishing in those pools is a pastime for kids and youths. The fishermen community does not only do fishing in the sea but also do cultivation especially of paddy. So they are both fishermen as well as farmers. The people spend most of their time in these two professions. Only a few families keep cattle in the villages. Women take part in cultivation and in household work. Caste system remains a major factor on which a village is set up. It is apparent also since one village is inhabited mostly by the people of one caste. People from one village mostly carry same title.
We found in Churamani most of the people in dire need of roof, food and cloths, no fresh water to drink, some tube-wells partially submerged in the flood water. All schedule caste, and most probably without any representative even at the block level, although Bhadrnk a reserved constituency. It was a village of about 120 houses, but we found only a couple of them intact and rest like piles of mud. It was 7 p.m. and dark. We talked to some of the people and came back.
We stayed in the BDO compound that night and in the morning, we distributed things directly to the people. While distributing we got the information about another fishermen community. After completing the distribution in Churamani we went to the village called Suan, but we managed to cover only about 60 to 70 percent families. On the way, while going to Suan, the people from roadside villages, children, young and old, the moment they saw truck, sat down on the road with plates and bawls and were not ready to let the truck move to reach to the more affected people. This is how we covered two and a half village. After coming into direct contact with people, we had a feel in us the kind of difficulties they are passing through. All the experiences can not be shared here, but we can say that thanks god that the little things we carried trickled down in the hands of the needy. One question kept on haunting - why the nature shows its might on these gentle, lovely, innocent, beautiful and eco-friendly people? In all these places we visited, we did not come across any other relief work going on except at a village called Sudarsanpur, where Sahara India was running one day a meal program.

Trees, Coconut and Their Significance in the Sustainability of the Village Life and Ecological Balance:

There was already a need of much more trees and forests to protect the coastal region from natural calamities. The government has implemented projects for forestation in the coastal areas. One such forest, around 35 kms was developed along the coastline in Puri district, but now the forest has turned into timberland full of logs. The seawater spread all over the forest and damaging the land with its salinity. The sea water in the forest has turned dark brown and giving a weathered look. No one can predict what kind of result this change in soil composition will yield in future. All the trees, old and new uprooted and hardly there is any tree intact in the most affected four-five districts of Eastern Orissa.
Coconut in the coastal Orissa is one of the main products from time immemorial. Earlier it was an affair of 30 to 40 years to grow a coconut tree, but with the induction of hybrid variety, now it takes around 15 years to grow it. This time more than 75% of coconut trees have been spoiled. Around half of them have lost their teeth, without which they can not grow and the trunk will dry up in months. And the rest half have either been detached from the root or got bent so much so that they can not grow further. For village level sustainability this destruction will carry long term impact. Many small-scale industries and handicrafts are primarily based on coconut and will suffer heavily. Given the fact that this region already needed much more forests and given the fact that a large chunk of the already existing forest and trees have suddenly vanished, one can very well imagine the sudden ecological imbalance in this region. There is an immediate need to intensify large scale forestation program along the coastline to save Orissa from further destruction in near future.

Education:

Education is an affair of normal situation. The fact is that education in normal situation is not a matter of much concern for these villagers, who live very immediate life. The literacy rate is very low in such villages and at this phase of calamity, when life is at stake, worrying about education of children and youths looks nothing more than a mockery for them. Most of the kacca-pukka schools are now the places for the roofless people to spend night, the best purpose a school can serve now. Although, we heard the murmurings of children around us for bohy (copies and books), but their voices were too feeble to be noticed near the cry for food, shelter and cloths. At hundreds of places we found the drenched bohies (books) of children stretched under the sun to dry them up filling our heart with hopes.

Religion:

The whole coastal Orissa is a land of temples. There are many ancient temples along the coast. Some of the, famous temples are Konark, Dauli, Jagannath and Lingraja. Puri is one of the four religious points (dhams) in India. The people don't seem to derive their spiritual force much from Vadic or Puran or highly Sanskritized version of Hindu religion. They have much faith in their local gods and goddesses. Sri. Jagannath is one such famous tribal god in this region and is considered one of the incarnations (avtara) of lord Krishna. Each small region has got local deity like Kamala, Candi, and Cheriki. Apart from these local deities, the village society has the space for charms and spirits. The belief system of the common people is a conglomeration of tales and stories associated with these local gods and deities and in that the contribution of the Sanskritized texts like Vedas and Puranas seem to be negligible. The local religious texts like Malika and Chadyapada contributes much in the formation of their belief system. This devastation has strengthened the faith of the people in these gods. The reason being given by the people is that the even after such a sever cyclone, these places of gods are safe and not only that the people around the temples managed to get protection in the temples and got their lives saved.

Lotus, Children and the Sea:

We experienced that lotus, children and the sea were the main minimizing forces of the trauma and agony. Rest of the things in Orissa will take years to return to normalcy. Everything, houses, trees, paddy fields, forests and minds of the grown ups are yet to recover from the devastation and deep trauma and agony. It is now the blooming red and white lotus in pools, the smiles of children and the deep calm sea, inspiring people to restart their lives afresh, which came to a halt a few days ago.

 

 

© 2007 Syed Ghalib Hussain	| Contact |	Last Updated: 10-09-2009