After the death dance

Had the State Government heeded warnings of the Indian Meteorological Department and alerted government officials in Saurashtra at least 15 hours before the cyclone hit, many of them could have been saved. By the time the district officials realised the intensity of the cyclone, it was too late.The Collectors of Kutch, Porbandar, Jamnagar and Junagadhdistricts had not been warned of the likely windspeeds and their effect. The district administration, expecting a milder cyclone, simply put together relief teams, set up control rooms and waited.

Says Porbandar8217;s deputy collector Ashok Sharma: quot;We had received a message 12 hours before the cyclone. But we were not prepared for that kind of nature8217;s fury. Although we had relief and rescue teams ready it was of no use because nobody could venture out in that weather.quot;Police officials at Kutch said that the control room at Bhuj, the district headquarters, was informed very late 8212; in fact, after the cyclone hit Kandla. quot;Neither the police nor the district collectorate was aware that the cyclone may hit Kutch,quot; said a senior officer.

Jamnagar Collector Girish Mormu was left without any mode of communication to establish contact with the coastal towns. Two days after the cyclone struck, the temple city of Dwarka and Khambhalia are still inaccessible and the fate of hundreds unknown.

quot;We were told of acyclone with windspeeds reaching 60 kmph to 70 kmph and we had prepared for that. We had not realised that we were totally unaware of the ground realities,quot; said a senior official.

And when the administration did swing into action it was hopelessly ill-equipped. Heavy vehicles, including trucks, earth movers and bulldozers, to evacuate people and launch rescue operations had to be borrowed from private companies. There was a shortage of manpower too, with only Rajkot district, relatively unaffected by the cyclone, able to send relief teams several hours later.

quot;Even after ministers and senior officials took charge there was chaos. Paramilitary battalions, additional relief and medical teams did not know where and whom to report to or what to do and remained stranded for several hours. Hospitals in Gandhidham near Kandla, Jamnagar and Porbandar were short of life-saving medicines and equipment,quot; said a relief worker. quot;Even though 20,000 homeless people were fleeing Kandla, only 5,000 food packets weredropped several hours later,quot; added a truck driver from Haryana who was stranded on the highway.

As the enormity of the tragedy sunk in, it was time to deal with the wreckage of the tragedy. In Gandhidham, for example, as the toll mounted, there was no one to collect the bodies or cremate them. Family members, relatives, friends, whoever survived, had fled, leaving the bodies to rot in the stagnant pools of water.

In the absence of food and drinking water, biscuit packets were being sold for five or six times their market price. People bought those, simply because there almost nothing else to eat.

Today, there is very little the people in these areas have to look forward to. Very little, barring VIP visits. Home Minister L.K. Advani arrived first in Jamnagar followed by Sonia Gandhi.

Local officials say the VIP visits have added to the confusion with the administration diverting focus from the cyclone-hit to the visiting VIP.