Cyclone wrecks family, 9-yr-old left to head it

BHUBANESWAR, NOV 17: A team of Army personnel, led by Major Chacko, which visited several villages east of the block headquarters town of Erasama, has come back with disturbing details about the devastation wrecked by the cyclone in the area.

The team visited Dhobi village in Kunjakothi gram panchayat. Major Chacko said that only 350 of the 1200 people of the village are alive. In one family of 15, only five children have survived. A nine-year-old boy is now the head of the family.

The boy8217;s father had put the kids in a cyclone shelter in the village before returning to the house to fetch others. He could not make it back to the shelter. The team also rescued a 30-year-old woman who was running high fever from a damaged house. She is the only member from a family of 13 who has survived.