Homeless and hungry after losing life’s savings to floods

Another earthen pot once contained rice; this has fermented. In the slush near her feet lie a pack of Jaya-G glucose biscuits and a pouch of Pantene shampoo,wares she used to sell from her shop.

“The flood has finished our lives. What’s the use living?” says Basanti.

At around 9 that night,when the Dalit couple were getting ready for dinner after a day’s work selling various items to villagers of Maudpur and Kantika,they heard the roar of floodwater,neck deep,advancing from the river Baitarani. “My house collapsed in no time,” says Basanti. “I would have died under the house had I not run out.”

Of the over 60 lakh people in 21 districts hit by Orissa’s “worst ever” flood,which came in two spurts within the span of a fortnight this month,many will not lead the same life again. They have been turned to paupers like the Sethis,savings of a lifetime washed away,their houses in ruins.

In the second spell alone,1.57 lakh houses were damaged. Standing paddy crops that would have been harvested in a month now lie under layers of silt,devastating farmers from Puri to Keonjhar.

The Sethis have been taking shelter at Maudpur Prathamik Vidyalaya since the village was flooded. In Bhadrak alone,over 4 lakh people have been affected and 10 have died. In the state,83 people have died in the two floods.

The state government has pressed seven helicopters and several ODRAF boats into service but not all those affected have been able to access the relief sent. In the last 10 days,all that the Sethis have got was a day’s ration of cooked food,given by the local sarpanch. For eight days,Maudpur and other villages of Raipur gram panchayat were neck deep in water,cut off from all else. The water started to recede on September 27.

A visiting team of Central officials described the devastation as huge. In Dhamnagar,at least 14 of the 29 gram panchayats suffered as the Baitarani breached its embankments in three places. In villages like Sanalpur of Dhamnagar’s Palasahi gram panchayat,senior citizens said they had been children when they had last seen such a flood. “Water came like a gushing fountain from a hill,” said Jagannath Mohanty,a village elder.

A few hundred yards from Maudpur lies Kantika,the most populous village of Raipur,with half that population Dalit. Till Thursday,there is little sign of relief in this village. “The sarpanch had given us a few packets of biscuits and chuda (rice flakes) on September 23. We got some rice and chuda again on September 28,” says a landless labourer.

Local youth Antaryami Das said local officials came on September 26 to distribute relief,but in their official papers they backdated the exercise to September 23. On September 28,Umakanta Behera,a BJP worker of Dhamnagar block under which Raipur falls,was murdered,allegedly by political rivals,after he had demanded relief for these areas.

“Snakes,snakes…,” screams Sethi. Indeed,two small snakes are crawling on the ground. Fellow villagers too have been reporting the presence of poisonous snakes.

“In the 1999 cyclone,my house was washed away. Then,the government gave me Rs 1,000,” Sethi says,estimating that a new thatched house would cost them Rs 50,000 at least. Kantha’s wife says,“I am not even thinking of a new house. The hunger is driving me mad.”

The tubewell in the village is submerged,but villagers have no option but to drink from it and pray that they don’t fall ill.

Two days ago,the Orissa government earmarked Rs 1,208 crore for reconstruction in flood-affected areas,to be sent within 45 days. Farmer Digambar Behera of Palasahi village is not too optimistic about how much of it would actually reach flood-affected people like him.