When the Super Cyclone hit the Odisha coast on October 29, 1999, it not only battered the State out of shape but left most people traumatised. The panic and fear that we witnessed as cyclone Phailin moved menacingly towards the Gopalpur coast recently was just a manifestation of what the coastal people had gone through 14 years ago.
The weather office had informed about the formation of a low pressure area close to the Andamans, perhaps on October 25, 1999, but it was passed off as routine. Only a week before a severe cyclonic storm had struck Gopalpur and it was not expected that another cyclone would be hitting the State so soon. But as the low pressure area (lOPAR) turned into a depression, then a deep depression and subsequently a cyclonic storm, it generated interest among the journalists and we began tracking its path. I was then working for a national news agency in Bhubaneswar.
The storm continued to hover over the Bay of Bengal for several days and was gaining strength with the passage of time. Till October 28, there were conflicting reports about its path. Some reports said it would turn around and head towards Bangladesh, sparing Odisha, but no one was certain. It drizzled intermittently as we waited for the cyclone, without a name, with bated breath. In the evening of October 28, we had information from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) that it would strike Odisha and the landfall would be somewhere close to Paradip.
Though warned about the calamity, the contingency plan was halfhearted. Most people did not bother to stock provisions at home. Even I, as a journalist, did not think about ensuring that the family had enough food, water and candles. As the cyclone that ravaged Gopalpur had wrought havoc for a couple of hours, I had thought that it would be something similar. At around 6 in the morning of October 29, I got a call from the office asking me to gear up to face a Super Cyclone. I could not fathom what it would be like.
A journalist friend called and promised to meet me after a couple of hours, if the cyclone had already crossed by then. We planned to go to the Secretariat to find out the details. As the cyclone had already started, there was no possibility of my venturing out. The swirling wind began to twirl the twigs and the speed began increasing. Some trees in front of my house crashed almost immediately while the neon signs on the shops at a distance began flying around. A huge mango tree next to my home began shaking violently causing consternation in our family. By now, heavy rains had started lashing.
My journalistic sixth sense started speaking to me: it is going to be an extraordinary situation, the experience of a lifetime. But for more than 24 hours, as the ferocious cyclone raged, one felt utterly helpless. Numbness enveloped me. For a whole day and a whole night, the wind --- we didn’t know what the actual speed was as it was never recorded but was later believed to be more than 250 kmph, kept whistling and raging. It was the most fearful night for millions of people in the Odisha coast.
As there was no power, we had to spend the night in complete darkness. There was no kerosene or candle in the house. My wife managed to lay her hands on a packet of tiny candles brought for lighting around a birthday cake. We managed to ward off the darkness for an hour or two and then spent the night in darkness. We, like many others, had a sleepless night.
At the first light of dawn, I ventured out to the verandah to have a peep at what was happening. All that I could see was that most trees, there were plenty outside my home, had crashed. It was like peeping through a keyhole to see the destruction. We faced a difficult situation; our drinking water stock had got exhausted; the food stock depleted; and no one was sure how long the ordeal would continue. The cyclone still surged outside, the shrill whistling sound piercing our eardrums.
Two of my officemates waded through knee-deep water to reach my home to find out how we were doing. They had been in the office since the previous morning as they were on duty. They gave me a description of the picture outside. We managed to have a frugal lunch and I decided to go out at around 1 O’clock. The cyclone had waned though the wind was still swaying the remnant of standing trees.
I made my way through water, fallen trees and reached Rajmahal Square and looked around. It was unrecognisable. The present flyover was not there at that time. Most of the billboards and signboards had disappeared while other debris was strewn across the large crossing. I then walked towards our office. There hardly was a soul on the road and the nearby large market wore a desolate look. When I reached the office, there was little I could do. There was no electricity; no information and no way connect to the outside world.
I decided to walk to the Secretariat nearby to find things out. The main gate, which is always manned by securitymen, was ajar with no one in sight nearby. As I entered the building, very few employees could be found. Panic was writ large on the faces of a few who were there. I walked into the chamber of a very senior bureaucrat, who was sitting alone with a candle flickering by his side. “We have no information. What you have experienced, we have experienced too. We don’t have any idea so far as to what has happened,” he told me.
When I looked around for any telephone connection, he said all the lines had become nonfunctional. “However, we have informed the telecom people to ensure that journalists can send their reports….you may go and try there,” he said.
The telecom office being just across the road, I continued to walk. I found a few other scribes had already reached the place and were cajoling the telecom engineers to help them. None of their efforts could bear fruit though we waited till past 10 O’clock in night.
Though we knew that the cyclone was extraordinary and must have caused enormous damage to life and property, there was no way to inform the world about it. The cellphone was yet to make its debut in Odisha and even if it had, I am sure, it would not have worked given the velocity of the cyclonic winds.
Though a news agency is supposed to be first with the news, we couldn’t send even one word to outside stations for the next four days. I was feeling guilty. We even contemplated travelling to a town like Dhenkanal or Angul which was not affected to communicate outside the State, but it could not be done as the highways were blocked by hundreds of fallen trees.
Markets remained closed for days. Darkness enveloped the nights as many continued to have nightmares about the cyclone with the shrill whistling sound still reverberating in their ears. I as a journalist was sitting on a lifetime’s experience but was not able to transmit even one word to anybody outside.
Somebody informed me that the telephone in the residence of Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang had begun working. We rushed there and found the news to be true. I connected to my New Delhi office and a girl in the desk picked up the phone. But whatever I was saying, she hardly understood. I couldn’t blame her as she had never experienced a cyclone herself.
The Army moved in to clear the debris and find out the situation. But it was after one full week that we could know that the cyclone, causing the sea to sweep inland for 15 km to 20 km, had killed over 9,000 people in Ersama block of Jagatsinghpur district.
When the Phailin moved menacingly towards Gopalpur a fortnight back, it brought back the horrific memories of 1999. The people, who were in its direct path, must have endured a similar situation though the death toll has remained very low because of a timely evacuation of people from vulnerable areas. The availability of cyclone shelters, they did not exist in 1999, in the coastal belt greatly helped the cause of the administration.
The Super Cyclone made the Government sit up and take notice of the vulnerability of the people as the Odisha coast was likely to be hit by cyclones again and again. This helped the preparedness, but the task of setting the house in order after the deluge needs further fine-tuning.
(The writer is a senior journalist)