|
|
|
|
METRO TODAY | DAILY NEWS | ASTROLOGY | ARCHIVES | INDIA TODAY | HOME |
|
|
ORISSA CYCLONE AFTERMATH The Living Dead Orissa's misery is compounded by a total collapse of its administrative. As the devastated people starve and fall sick, there's no one to dole out the tonnes of relief material. By Ruben Banerjee For Orissa's weeping millions there may not be life after the disaster. Battered and benumbed, they have been orphaned and forsaken as well by a bungling, torpid state Government that has all but abdicated its responsibility. Even as the weather clears and the waters begin to recede a fortnight after what is now acknowledged as the worst cyclone to hit the Indian coast in this century, a tidal wave of despair engulfs the state.
In village after village along the mud-slicked roads of its soggy coastal districts, the survivors of the storm, their cheeks sunken and eyes hollow from hunger, wait in vain for relief to come. Most spend their nights in the open as their roofs have been blown away. It's difficult to comprehend the scale of the disaster: over 8,000 dead and the toll still rising. Another 15 million made homeless overnight in a day's unprecedented fury. At least five lakh cattle killed. Standing crop along the 480 km from Puri to Balasore lost. Made a pygmy by the extent of the disaster, the state administration initially may have been forgiven its sluggish response. But two weeks later, the collapse of the administrative machinery continues to be near total. While people in the affected districts starve, trucks loaded with food bags queue for miles in Bhubaneswar, the state's capital, and in other district headquarters unsure of where to go. At Astarang in Puri, relief trucks choke the road outside the block development officer's office. But down the same road is a group of hungry villagers from Somnathpur scavenging for food. At Nandan, a devastated village in Jagatsinghpur, villagers are just about surviving on boiled tamarind leaves. The closest they have come to getting relief in the first 10 days was when a truck carrying rice meant for the village overturned in a ditch half a kilometre away. Meanwhile, an estimated 13,000 tonnes of food, close to 40 per cent of what the Centre has pumped into the state, is yet to be distributed. Only a third of the dhotis and saris rushed to the state have reached the needy. In most of the towns of the 11 affected districts power and drinking water are yet to be restored. Almost half of the 80,000 phones remain dead.
In a macabre irony, even as hundreds of rotting bodies are discovered every day, there are no volunteers to dispose of the dead. Last week, the Central Government had to rush 250 sweepers from Delhi by a chartered flight to bury or burn Orissa's dead. Even chlorine tablets to purify the water contaminated by putrefying carcasses are in short supply: last heard, there are stocks of just nine lakh tablets, whereas if just 10 lakh people are to take four tablets a day for a week, 280 lakh tablets are needed. Yet, a placid Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang claims, "We are sparing no efforts to reach out to the distressed." He may find it difficult convincing his own staff for on the ground chaos and confusion reigns. "Together with the state, its Government too has been reduced to debris," scoffs Naveen Patnaik, Union minister of mines and minerals and president of the Biju Janata Dal. In the past few days, the war of words between Gamang and Patnaik has regrettably intensified. Typically, the chief minister announced at an all-party meet last week that enough foodgrain and relief have been rushed to the affected districts. However, two days later Patnaik, on a tour to Kendrapara, complained loudly that out of a total requirement of 30,000 tonnes of foodgrain, the district had received only 2,000 tonnes. At any other time, the sparring may have been amusing. But the situation called for setting aside differences and political one-up-manship. It called for leaders to work together to save lives. If cohesiveness among political parties was conspicuous by its absence, the state bureaucracy, never known for its efficiency, simply crumbled. In the midst of the crisis, Orissa Chief Secretary S.B. Mishra flew out to the US on November 9 to see his ailing daughter, leaving an already floundering administration rudderless. Even when he was around, the bureaucracy committed some shocking lapses. Despite advance warning of the storm, Puri District Collector P.K. Mahapatra was nowhere to be seen in the district headquarters. The Government had to rush in another collector a day before the cyclone struck on October 29. Other top officials were no better. The district collector of Bhadrak, Loknath Mishra, left his post and his district virtually orphaned to visit his family in his native village during the storm. The Government replaced him too but only on November 6. Many of those who stuck to their posts didn't do much either. The district collector of Kendrapara, N.P. Mohapatra, refused to venture out of the safety of the town even days after the cyclone had passed though his district had taken a severe battering. Gamang had him replaced. The Jajpur collector, Suresh Patnaik, had to be shown the door too because when the chief minister contacted him one evening over the police wireless, he found the officer had gone to bed by 7 p.m. It was, however, a case of too little being done too late. For very quickly everything went out of control and law and order began to break down. Relief trucks that could have saved many lives were looted near Panikoili of Jajpur district by none else than a group of greedy policemen. As the Gajapati collector, R.P. Naik, was driving down to his native village in Kendrapara to check on the well-being of his aged parents, he saw 50,000 bags of food supplied by care being looted from a warehouse. Even defence personnel, who have been doing a heroic job, are cut up. Between Paradip and Vizag, the navy has been shuttling no less than six ships to ferry in relief. But little is being unloaded. Three generators brought in had to wait for four full days before they could be unloaded and put to use for pumping in much-needed drinking water. As the toll rose and epidemics broke out, the Central Government became increasingly frustrated with the state's response. Vajpayee flew in last week to survey the damage himself. Gamang and he were to go around together by helicopter. But a technical snag delayed his flight from Delhi considerably forcing him to make a survey from the Boeing aircraft itself. A miffed Gamang thought his exclusion was deliberate. Then in his discussions he kept demanding that Vajpayee declare the disaster a national calamity. He had been advised by his officials that this way most of the funds released by the Centre would be treated as a grant and not as a loan. An exasperated Vajpayee had to point out that the Centre had already released close to Rs 200 crore under the National Calamity Relief Fund as grant and had even waived all the paperwork required. After all that quibbling, the state Government has so far spent only half the money released. Fearing that the situation was slipping out of control, on November 10 Vajpayee set up a Central task force headed by Defence Minister George Fernandes. Its first job will be to ensure emergency relief reaches people before more die of disease and hunger. Meanwhile, Ersama town on the coastline presents a doomsday scenario. Swamped with water, only now is the true havoc coming home. Just outside the block development office, a corpse sticks out from the rubble of a house. There are many more strewn along the dirt tracks nearby. At least 4,000 people, or more than half the toll so far, perished here. The interior parts are still cut off and no one knows how many have survived. They could join the growing numbers of Orissa's living dead. If nothing is done quickly. -with Subhadra Menon and Sayantan Chakravarty |
||||||||
| Top |
 BUSINESS TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS | COMPUTERS TODAY Write to us | Subscriptions | Advertise with
us |
