The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Tsunami puts village at mercy of sea

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 05, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Tsunami puts village at mercy of sea

By M. Rajeev

Uprooted trees precariously leaning over the water as a result of land erosion at Chinagollapalem village in Krishna district. Photo: Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar.

CHINAGOLLAPALEM (KRISHNA DT.), JAN. 4. Residents of this sleepy village, abutting the Bay of Bengal on the border of Krishna and West Godavari districts, heaved a sigh of relief when tsunami that hit the south Indian coast did not cause any major damage in their habitation. The monstrous waves came, hit the coast to an extent of a few hundred metres and receded. There was no loss of either life or property in this village, forming part of Kruttivennu mandal of Krishna district.

But, little did the 8,000-odd residents of the village realise that the tidal wave had opened doors for natural calamities like cyclones to show their strength on their hitherto "safe haven." The high tidal wave swept along with it a major portion of the landmass that used to act as a barrier between the village and the sea.

The sea mouth, which was a few hundred metres away from the village earlier, advanced significantly turning the place into a vulnerable zone.

Treading warily

The waves have now started cutting the land adjoining the village, washing away the sand and uprooting the trees, throwing life of the residents into peril. The villagers, who used to venture freely into the sea, via the drains, till recently, are now watching out for the ebb or tide before moving their boats into the water.

Residents of Chinagollapalem, a man-made island surrounded by the two drains -- one from Krishna district and the other from neighbouring West Godavari district -- considered the drains to be a scourge for their village as they were causing soil erosion at an alarming pace.

In the aftermath of tsunami, elders and the educated in the village are convinced that the drains acted as a shield in dissipating the entire energy of the tidal wave which could, otherwise, have wreaked havoc on them.

Water has, no doubt, entered the village during the tide, but the intensity after crossing the drains is so low that nothing has been affected.

"We realised only after a couple of days that the barriers between the village and the sea had gone and the waves begun hitting the village border," says K. Suryaprakash Rao of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan school in the village.

A long-felt need

While the concern over a possible threat to the village is looming large in their minds on the one hand, the residents are equally worried about the accessibility to the mainland on the other.

"There is no road connectivity to the village and we have to entirely depend on either manually operated boats or launches in case of an emergency," Mr. Rao says. Several representations for construction of a bridge across the drain had been made earlier, but in vain.

The Government, on its part, has entrusted the task of construction of a bridge connecting a couple of islands with the mainland to a private company.

But, the construction that commenced a few years ago still remained incomplete, thanks to the technical reasons as the officials say while residents view them to be more "political" in nature.

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