Samikhsya Bureau
A story in a major national English daily made an interesting and amusing reading. The contents in the article proffer to suggest that the state administration has matured over the years, right from 1999 Super Cyclone to Fani, to emerge as one model state setting examples for others as how a state machinery triggers within it the resilience to meet with the menace of such kind.
In general the author has made some points, which can’t be contested offhand but the entire picture of such happenings should not enjoy a takeaway of generalisation. The 1999 disaster was apocalyptic in nature and lack of many pre- and post-tragedy handling of crisis was obviously the reason, which led to the loss thousands of human lives and lakhs of livestock. Officially the death toll was put at 10,000 but it was widely believed it was much more.
But at a time when we have all the advance technology to forecast the menaces of a disaster like Cyclone Fani and there was an advantage of sufficient media outreach to caution the people, perhaps, what was perceptibly lacking was the lack of preparedness to tackle the situation once the disaster struck.
Official reports say that over 12 lakh people were taken to safer shelters with all facilities. But there were enough reason to disbelieve the claim because about 12 hours before Cyclone Fani made its landfall, reports had said that about 4 lakh had been shifted to all equipped shelter homes. Then how on earth it was humanly possible to shift another 8 lakhs people in the next few hours!
A successful disaster management, as the author claimed, can have the credence only if the post-cyclone fallouts were taken care of which includes primarily drinking water and restoration of power supply. Rest all statistical sophistry is okay but the above two aspects are most essential.
Till the time this piece is written there is no inkling, whatsoever, from the official quarters whether electricity can be restored within any tentative time frame or not. Which can only ease other many such issues for reddresal including water supply. It is already a week when the population in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Puri keeps grasping for the two major lifelines that can’t be compensated by any other pep talk.
