As it normally happens towards the parting times of monsoon, low-pressure rains flowed down to swell the Hirakud Dam reservoir in quick time before oversmart engineers could calculate the extent of danger and take precautions.
As the dam couldn’t carry anymore load, urgent emptying was the only way out. Sluice gates were lifted to let out enormous amount of water gushing down causing horrific spate in downstream Mahanadi. As civic authorities were grappling breathlessly to rescue or give relief to distressed residents cities like Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri inundated overwhelmingly, news came that a young tusker was in trouble.
A whole herd had crossed the river perhaps; but this relatively less experienced tusker couldn’t swim across as the water was not deep enough, nor could it wade through as the force of the flowing water was exceedingly fierce.
The elephant in distress was in the middle of Mahanadi’s Mundali barrage, which turned a place of adventure tourism within the hour. ‘Elephant rescue’ became a mission for all! The pinheads among the forest officials never confessed their gross ignorance.
They devised weird, impracticable strategies of reaching out in an Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) boat and get the elephant following them like a tame school kid. The ODRAF had long since cut a niche for itself by having done commendable work in rescue, relief and reconstruction operations across India. Doubtlessly, ODRAF experts were never exposed to rescuing animals, least of all an elephant, from ferociously gushing waters of rivers.
Little did any of these forest fools realise that the mission was literally impossible to achieve by routine methods as the elephant, a born super-swimmer, could not wriggle out only because the gushing waters were ferociously strong. The ODRAF rescue guys were probably taking mad orders from ivory tower bosses who did fanciful things believing they would never get caught on the wrong foot. The lowwrung functionaries would remain the shield of protection anyway.
But as things stand today, it’s the forest officials to blame squarely as they alone seem to have come up with the ODRAF boat idea. These rogue forest officials eating up huge salary for doing all the wrong things need to be held to account without mercy. Even if the ODRAF idea had come from elsewhere, the forest fools should have put their foot down knowing how animals behave. Similarly, the ODRAF bosses should have made sure that boats and the works would be equally effective in rescuing a huge animal stranded in dangerously gushing waters.
What was urgently required was to feed the animal losing strength for having starved for days. As it was losing physical strength and stamina every minute, a drone or helicopter alone should have hung over and dangled food accessibly. The distressed hulk could also have gained courage by going through the motions of munching away food, thereby elevating its own mood and dispelling fear.
Wildlife enthusiasts and self-proclaimed animal lovers too kept mum when most required as they themselves were confused and witless as most of them are armchair activists who echo statements they get to read or hear from elsewhere.So, low-wrung forest officials were forced to go aboard the fragile ODRAF boat that comes live by being inflated only to move and serve in calm or slightly rough waters. More shockingly, the ‘ODRAF-forest official’ adventurers allowed TV media fellows to board the balloon boat and experiment weird things. In the age of high-tech news gathering devices like drones and telescopic cameras, the over enthusiastic reporters jumped in to be washed away before the eyes of many.
The media houses that encourage such ‘ground-zero’ reporting by field guys be compelled by authorities and law courts to cough out at least 10 million rupees to the bereaved, mourning families even if not exactly wealthy enough. If wealth is at hand, more should be extracted for the helpless families.
The most shocking of all things was the uncontrollable crowd of spectators all around and above on the bridge running by closely. The frenzied crowd, though with a compassionate heart, was only bungling up the situation. They were insanely frightening the young tusker and encouraging the ODRAF-forest fools to brave the water to prove heroism publicly. Eventually, the fragile boat, overburdened with more passengers than it could bear, hit the concrete below, smashed the engine to cause terrible panic and overturned, as was unexpected, at such a point where nothing much could have been done in the instant. If only they had a helicopter to stand by for emergency, all the three precious lost lives, two humans and one animal, could have been saved.
The beautiful young elephant could have nourished itself with high energy fruits hanging near its mouth to provide enough strength for the young jumbo to wade through water. The helicopter ladder could have picked the humans. Only the fragile inflated boat would have been lost.
There is this Kerala story of ‘elephant rescue’ worth reading: A wild elephant was swept away in swirling flood waters was saved by a team of wildlife-lovers and forest department officials after more than four hours near the famous Athirapally waterfall in flood-hit Kerala’s Thrissur district. The stranded elephant was first noticed by locals who immediately informed the forest officials. The elephant had managed to climb onto a rocky terrain but could not move out as gushing waters engulfed it from all sides. The elephant had become tired for having been stranded for more than 24 hours without food. The first thing the rescue team decided to do was to block the gushing water somehow. They immediately alerted the Peringalkooth dam officials who shut three sluice gates for two hours.
Within four hours, the jumbo would wade safely through water to the banks. Once the water receded, they burst crackers and led the tusker to hit land and melt away into the forests joyfully.
It is evident that the people pulling strings from the flood control, forest and wildlife management outfits, so much so the media barons frantic about what’s called ‘ground zero’ reporting, need to be pulled up so ruthlessly as never to commit fatal mistakes yet again. Even the police seemed to have failed to appear on the Mahanadi scene fittingly to scare away frenzied crowds causing panic among the fateful boat riders and the young jumbo in equal measure. The saddest part of the story is that the precious young tusker for whom so much real-life drama was staged at incalculable costs, ultimately drowned due to exhaustion and resurfaced dead miles down the stream in Cuttack. Once the ODRAF boat capsized, all attention had shifted to the error-prone humans, and naturally so. The living tusker in distress had lost all value.
The ODRAF bosses, forest fools, armchair wildlife activists that talk sense only after all is lost, and critical decision makers in the related domains need to undergo intensive skill training and exposure. The Kerala experience should have been chronicled and kept carefully for reference.
The ODRAF, until the sad ‘tusker episode’ occurred, had gained the reputation of being second to none on the living planet. They may now have to struggle intensely to keep the glory intact!
