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Journalism of Courage
His hut reduced to a heap of mud and straw by the overflowing Chitroptala river, when Nilamani Samal, 75, fled from Bichana village of Garadpur block in Kendrapara district, he did so with hopes of finding a refuge that would not collapse around him and his family.
Seven days later, Samal and nine of his family members crouched for space under a torn polythene sheet that did little to protect them from the lashing rain. “I can stay hungry for a few more days, but we can’t survive like this for long,” said a visibly ill Samal. His plight reflects that of many of other people here, who are as much victims of a fragile relief machinery as they are of the floods, especially in the coastal districts of Kendrapara, Cuttack, Jagatgsinghpur and Puri.
On Friday, even though the waters of the Mahanadi showed signs of receding, the devastation wrought by the floods has not abated. The death toll mounted to 61 as floodwater entered more villages in the Mahanadi deltaic region through 459 breaches on the embankments. So far 41.33 lakh people and 1.35 lakh houses in 19 districts have been affected, while over 8 lakh people in 740 villages remain cut off from the rest of the world. Despite these figures, Additional Relief Commissioner Benudhar Dash told The Indian Express: “Everyone has got relief. Water is receding. Don’t bother about small details. The situation is perfectly normal.”
By this, he may mean that most areas of Kendrapara still can’t be reached while all that that the worst-affected Gop and Nimapara blocks in Puri have are five flimsy country boats. Several villages of Garadpur, one of the most harshly-hit areas in Kendrapara are still out of reach while a few like Bichana are subsisting on scraps of flattened rice and jaggery.
Although Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Manmohan Samal said the Government was rushing more food for victims, it is clearly not enough. In certain Dalit hamlets in Kalapatna gram panchayat under Puri’s Nimapara block, for example, there is next to nothing by way of aid. “The relief work started and ended with that (flattened rice). Whatever relief came to Puri, nothing dripped down to these villages. The Dalit families are hungry and without even a polythene sheet over their heads,” said Bhramarabara Jethi, an NGO worker in Puri.
