Tamil Nadu - Nagapattinam   

Pall of gloom descends on Nagore

By Our Staff Reporter

NAGAPATTINAM, DEC. 27 . A pall of gloom descended on Nagore, the famous pilgrim centre for Muslims as the tidal waves have left a trail of destruction.

Fishing hamlets along the coastal village bore the brunt of the fury of the gushing seawater.

The seawater had spread up to the railway station, located nearly a kilometre away from the shore.

Almost every family in the fishing hamlet had lost a member. Bodies were still lying scattered along the streets, posing a threat of an epidemic outbreak.

Locals said many more bodies were lying inside houses.

Though villagers joined hands to retrieve the bodies till late in the evening, the effort had to be given up after dusk due to power failure and inadequate transport.

Household articles, fishing boats and nets lay washed ashore on the railway tracks.

But for a few ambulances transporting the injured and dead, there was no major relief and rescue attempt.

The fate of the fishermen who had ventured into the seas is not known.

An eerie silence prevailed in the villages. Shops and commercial establishments remained closed in Nagapattinam. Hundreds of pilgrims, including many from other States, who had come for Christmas to Vailankanni, were feared to have been caught in the tides.

Out Tiruchi Staff Reporter reports

Trip turns calamitous

A weekend trip to Pondicherry turned calamitous for a Bangalore-based family, according to its friends here.

The family, comprising a civil engineer, Sashidhar Udupa, his wife Geeta Sashidhar, and their son Pranav Udupa, who visited Chennai last week, along with a friend of theirs, proceeded to Pondicherry for the weekend.

According to their family friend in Srirangam, Malini, the cab the family hired was swept away by seawater near Chidambaram coast.

While the parents died, Pranav Udupa had a providential escape.

The fate of the family's Hubli-based friend was not yet known, said Ms. Malini.

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Pall of gloom descends on Nagore
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Power supply restored in Nagapattinam

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