BHUBANESWAR: Over a crore people began to pick up pieces of their lives on Saturday, the day after Cyclone Fani left a trail of devastation across 11 districts of Odisha on Friday.
Nearly a third of the State was battered by the monstrous storm which has reportedly claimed over 20 lives in different districts and left more than a crore people in a state of misery with massive destruction of property and infrastructure, shutdown of essential services and complete breakdown of communication.
Puri and Khurda bore the brunt of the storm while nine others Cuttack, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal and Nayagarh were severely affected.
The State Government, though winning worldwide appreciation for the tremendous work in minimizing human loss of lives by evacuating over a million people, is now faced with a gigantic task to restore critical infrastructure and services to bring back normalcy. Restoring power and water supply along with communication remains top on the work-list but the scale and magnitude of the damage has posed a real challenge.
The sparkling Biju Patnaik International Airport at Bhubaneswar presented a picture of Fani’s wrath. Despite damage to its facilities by the storm that blew at over a speed of 160-170 km per hour, operation of commercial of flights started on the day. It will continue to remain normal. Similarly, railway services which had come to a halt will start tomorrow from Bhubaneswar though the City Railway Station has left in tatters by the storm.
In view of the severe fallout of Fani, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday morning and assured all support from the Centre. Modi will visit the State on Monday to take stock of the situation whereas Chief Minister Naveen went on an aerial survey of the affected regions on Saturday for an assessment.
Naveen described Fani as one of the rarest of the rare summer cyclones – the first in 43 years and one of the three to hit the State in last 150 years – since it was difficult tracking the trajectory of the storm which made prediction difficult. “In fact, till 24 hours of the landfall of the cyclone, one was not sure about the trajectory it going to take because of the predictions of different agencies.
By now it is clear that Fani hit Puri with a wind speed of 200 km per hour gusting to 240 km tearing apart critical infrastructure such as power and water supply and telecom services. Lakhs of trees were uprooted by the storm along its path.
In Puri and neighbouring Khurda districts where Bhubaneswar is located, the electricity infrastructure has been completely devastated. “We have the challenge to set up the entire electrification afresh,” Naveen said.
With no power, water went for a toss across Bhubaneswar where there were reports of skirmishes by slum dwellers after the local municipal agencies failed to provide tanker supply to meet people’s needs.
Many areas also reported the theft of valuables and essential items.
The Twin City of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack was also hit by a serious cash crunch as ATMs went dysfunctional due to the snapping of communication networks. With little cash in hand, they were struggling to arrange emergency services to cope with the post-cyclone situation. Banking services came to a complete halt at most places due to non-availability of power as well as internet connectivity.
Petrol pumps could not provide fuel because of the absence of electricity while the ones that managed saw serpentine queues. With cash not available and ATMs not functioning, At many petrol pumps, hand-held POS devices did not work leaving people angry and frustrated. Prices of essential items were spiralling in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri and other parts.
Naveen said, the Government is in the process of restoring basic services. “Compared to the 1999 Super Cyclone, instead of Fani being a tragedy of humongous proportions, we are in the process of restoring critical infrastructure.
That is the transformation that Odisha has had and I thank the 4 and a half crore people which have made this possible,” he said.