SANDHAKUD (PARADIP), NOV 6: Thousands of fishermen and labourers in this port town are left with no option but to migrate to a life full of uncertainties. Misery haunts the lives of the 50,000 people of Sandhakuda, one of the villages worst hit by the cyclonic storm, and a dozen of villages situated within a radius of two to three kilometres from the beach.Deprived of their means of sustenance and shattered by the death of relatives, hundreds of men, women and children of this coastal town are seen leaving their homes, carrying their few belongings.The majority of the workers are from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, while the fishermen are from Andhra Pradesh. Besides the fishermen, those who have started leaving for their native places are workers of Paradip Port Trust, Oswal Chemicals and Fertilisers Limited and East Coast Breweries.The cyclone has destroyed the fishing trawler in which R. Jagannath worked as a driver-mechanic. Gazing at the Indian Air Force (IAF) choppers carrying VIPs onaerial surveys, he gets ready to bid goodbye to Paradip.``The trawler I was dependent on is no more. Everywhere there are dead bodies and animal carcasses. We have no alternative but to leave the place at least to avoid an epidemic,'' he says.While many have lost their livelihood, several have been left bereaved. Namita Sahoo of Paradipgada, whose husband was crushed under the wall of their house , waits with her three-year-old daughter for a bus to take her to her village in Banki, Cuttack. ``I screamed for help. But, there was nobody to come forward,'' she says.After taming the sea for over 15 years, Purna Chandra Behera, a fisherman from Kendrapara district, lost his younger brother in the cyclonic storm. ``I don't want to stay here. Who knows, another cyclone may take my life and that of my family," he says.
