--Victims get more sympathisers,
less succour
BRAHMAPUR: Even one month after
the cyclonic Phailin that brought colossal damages in Ganjam and its
neighbouring districts, the victims are yet to forget the horror of October 12
night. The district which is prone to distress migration, the calamity ravaged
natives, having lost belongings and livelihood, were gearing up to move outside
the State for job.
At Khatia Ramachandrapur village
under Ganjam block, which was in news for undergoing massive destructions, the
uprooted and damaged trees were still kissing the ground, while cattle was
grazing in damaged paddy and vegetable crop fields.
Rabindra Satpathy of the village
whose roof was blown away in the gale and several ill-fated villagers were
jostling to narrate their ordeals. Rabindra’s wife Bijaylaxmi told her family’s
miseries after the cyclone destroyed the house. They never thought that their
concrete roof would be razed in the storm. “How can I build my house as I have
lost everything, including standing crops?” she said, lamenting that though
there was no dearth of sympathizers towards their plight, in terms of getting
assistance to rebuild her house, she was getting nothing.
The villagers informed that a few
NGOs and welfare organisations distributed relief and cooked food in their
village after the calamity but they looked fed up with relief alone. What they
badly required was money to rebuild their damaged houses. Since the village was
located on the foot of a hill, the residents apprehended danger from the wild
animals and snakes “The relief given to
us was finished within 15 days. The Government should now come forward to help
us with money so that we can build our houses and raise our next crops,” said
Surendra Satpathy, another villager whose house too was flattened by the
ferocious storm.
Frustration, anger and suffering
filled many villages like Raulibandha, Humburi, Barapalli, Gopalpur,
Kushapalli, Panibandha, Lunguri, Malada, Borigaon, Kalajamuna, Khatiakuda,
Kantiagada, Nialdripur and small towns like Santoshpur, Humma, Podampetta and
New Podampetta. The residents in these villages were wary of rebuilding their
houses and restarting their livelihoods. However, they were not getting any
help from either the Government or any agency to make up for the losses they
suffered owing to the gale.
At seaside Podampetta village,
still the water had not receded. People were repairing their houses on their
own without waiting for any Government help.
B Sridhar, a villager, said the
local people were facing scarcity of drinking water in the village after the
cyclone and were going three km to fetch water for their daily usages. Besides,
electricity was yet to be restored to the village.
A few fishermen said, “We lost
our livelihood and shelter, now we don’t have any option except going outside
the State in search of work.”
At New Podampetta, which was
shifted from the sea beach to Podagada under Ramagarh gram panchayat after 15
houses were swept away by the sea tide in 2011, the villagers looked equally
worried. They had faced heavy loss in the cyclone. Almost all the houses in the
village were destroyed in the calamity.
The villagers had covered their
damaged houses with polythene sheets. Still the houses were looking precarious
as they had been drenched in the torrential rains that hit the area after the
cyclone. The affected villagers said that they could not go for fishing as
their boats and fishing nets had been damaged. “We need Government’s assistance
to build our boats and arrange nets,” said Ch Dandasi of the village.
Similarly, B Gariga of the
village said a road to the village was totally damaged. “The Government should
repair the road first to take up other restoration works,” he said.
 |
| Children are outside their school (Makeshift tent) at Podampetta |
At the end of the village, tents
replaced a school and an anganwadi centre as their buildings had been destroyed
in the cyclone.
“We have many problems, but the
basic necessities like drinking water facility, shelter and road communication
are very important for us now. We have requested the Collector to solve the
problems, but we don’t know when our miseries will end,” said B Sathiga.
Published as front page story in
The Pioneer on November 13, 2013
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