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Ersama to Paradip: A journey through death and destruction

George Iype in Jagatsinghpur

It takes just over two hours to travel from from Ersama to Paradip. Fertile land and lush green paddy fields once lined this 40-km road. But today, after the super cyclone battered the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, what greets you instead on the journey is the stench of decaying corpses and the revolting sight of vultures picking on carcasses.

Some of the decayed bodies have been left in the sun for the past 20 days and rescue workers say they look like dry wooden logs.

The stench is so strong that voluntary groups provide visiting journalists with masks. "Wear them or you will faint because of the smell," says Mohammad Khan, a soldier who has been on duty here for two weeks.

Twenty days after 16-feet tidal waves washed away several houses, mass funerals have not stopped. Army soldiers and hundreds of volunteers belonging to different religious and voluntary organisations - Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Missionaries of Charity, Anand Margi and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sanghatan - have been searching for corpses and burning them every day.

"Our religion does not allow burning of bodies. But army insists...I believe it's the safest method,'' says Sister Karuna, who has come from Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Calcutta.

"I have never seen so many human bodies. Our effort is to immediately cleanse these villages of corpses before cholera and other diseases strike," she added.

The common ingredients of a mass funeral are dry branches of uprooted trees and petrol that the army provides. Volunteers say a silent prayer as army soldiers light the funeral pyre.

Army officials say there aren't many survivors in some of the badly-hit villages. "But we continue to air-drop food packets so that people do not die of hunger," says an army official.

As you travel from one end of Jagatsinghpur to its southern edge in Paradip, children, women, and old men run after your car pleading for food and money. Little children quarrelling for biscuits, old men and women running after trucks for food packets and young women pleading for saris - just about everyone here has been turned into a beggar.

"I had one acre of rice field. I lived peacefully with my four children and wife. I do not know how and where my wife and three daughters died. My son is now begging for food," 58-year old Krishna Datta, lamented.

But as you reach Paradip, scenes of tragedy are replaced by scenes of courage and revival. Hundreds of fishermen, who have lost their boats, houses and near and dear ones are getting ready to set sail again.

The sea has been their saviour for all these years. "We have to depend on the sea god to survive. So we are going fishing again," says Ram Doss.

"The sea has punished us. But we are not afraid of the sea because we belong to her," he added.

Nearly 1,000 fishermen were swept away when tidal waves lashed Paradip and the adjoining villages. Hundreds of injured fishermen are being treated in mobile medical vans and temporary sheds.

But once they recover from their injuries, they would all set sail deep into the sea for a good catch, forgetting the evil face of the sea that they confronted on October 29.

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