ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Storm survivors yet to come to terms with loss

Debi Patnaik in Paradip

Hundreds of bloated bodies and thousands of livestock carcasses lie scattered on both sides of the road leading to Paradip, reminiscent of a battlefield.

Even six days after the devastating super cyclone which hit the Orissa coast on the night of October 28, the survivors are yet to come to terms with their loss.

As one enters Kujang, about 40 kilometres from Paradip, the scene is one of total destruction. The houses have been ravaged by the cyclone's fury, scores of villages remain marooned and uprooted trees are everywhere.

The stench of decomposing bodies pervades the air as the relatives of the dead are left with no means to provide them a decent funeral. They await the civic authorities to take steps for mass cremation.

After the destruction of the houses, the road has become home for the hapless people. Most of them have managed to build small structures with the branches and leaves of the uprooted trees.

Unable to bear the sight of infants crying for food, people stand on the road looking for any opportunity to grab food or any other thing from those passing by. No relief material has reached them as yet.

After the road was reopened for traffic, whenever any vehicle passed, the starving people would try to stop it desperately pleading for a morsel of food.

Banamali of Kalagada mourns for his daughter who might have perished in the cyclone. The girl, bed-ridden with cancer, could not be moved from her house before the arrival of the storm.

The villagers said they had been alerted about the cyclone, but failed to visualise its magnitude as they had survived such storms in the past.

In Butmangi village, all the houses have been razed to the ground as five to eight-metre-high tidal waves submerged the area.

The main worry for the survivors now is the possibility of epidemics breaking out. Bodies were rotting under the water.

Although the government is yet to come out officially about the casualty figures, local MP Prabhat Samantray, who toured the area, claimed that more than 5,000 have died in Paradip and its neighbouring villages alone.

Samantray, who made an aerial survey of the area, said that even from the aircraft, one could smell the decomposing bodies and carcasses. With the sea water receding, more and more bodies have been found scattered all over, he added.

In Paradip town, bodies were being fished out of the water and being transported by dumpers.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report