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Of ghost towns and famished folks fighting for food

The villages in coastal Orissa resemble ghost towns but only until the choppers arrive. Their sound is enough to rouse the tired and hungry villagers from their stupor and rush towards the hovering helicopters, crying out for food and clothing.

Once relief materials are air dropped from the MI 8 helicopters and Chetaks, people of all ages start scouring the entire area, looking for anything that might have been trapped amidst the debris.

Temporarily forgetting filial bonds the famished people fight for their share of food and those left hungry run after the choppers gesturing for food, hollering that they have been starving for several days.

Hundreds of people in the worst-affected Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts remain marooned, eight days after the killer cyclone struck.

This correspondent managed to reach some of the cut-off villages close to Kendrapara yesterday and witnessed the devastation.

At Chalapada gram panchayat, under Mahanga block, scores of villagers appeared from nowhere when a Chetak hovered over the inundated countryside, but were a dismayed lot when they could not count more than seven packets.

The law of the jungle still prevails, and only the strongest manage to grab the few packets, even if it means pushing away small children who try their luck.

Over 6,000 villagers in the gram panchayat and its surrounding villages have started staying in their damaged houses, as the area had been totally cut off from the rest of the state.

Rotten carcasses of cattle dot the streets, polluting air and water, and increasing the chances of an epidemic.

After a long wait, relief arrives in the form of food and medicine. Lakhan Kumar Sethy, village ward member, said the villagers lost in 30 minutes everything they ever possessed. Even the school building which could have provided shelter, collapsed, he added.

The children and many adults were showing symptoms of cholera, but there were neither medicines nor doctors to treat them, he lamented.

Govindpur, Brahamagarada, Barbati, Baradia and Raniguda villages are equally damaged. The villagers had received nothing except a kilogram of rice each during the last week.

All the ponds and wells in the villages are flooded and the crops heavily damaged. The villagers use the polluted water, well knowing it could cause an epidemic.

The villagers have no spare clothes and have been wearing the same tattered clothes for over a week now. Fearing a possible outbreak of epidemic, the army has asked the administration to rush medicines and doctors to the marooned areas. However, the medicines have not yet been dropped as it is a risk to air drop medicines when there are no doctors in the villages, a pilot engaged in relief sorties said.

A stink emanates from the marooned villages and the local authority has made no attempt to disinfect the ponds and wells which are black in colour due to decomposed vegetation.

The armed forces have jointly dropped over 350 tonnes of food material in as many as 160 sorties, but there are many who are still awaiting relief.

The army managed to reach Astaranga block, one of the worst-affected areas in Puri district, only a week after the cyclone struck, as tidal waves engulfed all the 13 panchayats in the block, killing some 15,000 cattle and claiming at least 131 lives.

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