With the rescue workers bringing 12 bodies to the shore from the Arabian Sea on Wednesday, the death toll in Kerala in cyclone Ockhi rose to 66 generating fears that the havoc the storm wreaked could be much worse than feared, especially as a large number of fishermen are still said to be missing.
While nine bodies were found from the sea off the Kozhikode coast, one was found near the coast in Chellanam, some 30 kilometers south of Kochi. Rescue workers also brought ashore one body each at Perinjanam in Thrissur district and Ponnani in Malappuram district. Fishermen who had joined the search operations said they had seen bodies floating in the deep sea.
Sources with the Coastal Police said that about 40 bodies were yet to be identified. According to informal estimates, nearly 200 fishermen who had gone for work before the cyclone were yet to return from the sea and this has worsened the anxiety in the State’s fishing hamlets.
“We still hope that our dear and near ones who had gone to sea before the cyclone hit Kerala are safe. They had gone more than 14 days ago. There is enough reason to be anxious but we can’t lose hope. Still, I don’t like the way bodies are coming ashore every passing day,” said Andrews, a fisherman from Poonthura fishing hamlet in Thiruvananthapuram.
However, hope in the fishing hamlets about return of their men from sea is getting fainter by the day as many of them had gone for work in small boats before cyclone Ockhi hit Kerala coast on November 30. “The small boats are not equipped to stay in the sea for more than 36 hours. Is it possible for them to survive for so many days and through such a stormIJ” asked Andrews.
At the same time, leaders of fishermen’s associations in Kochi said that no information was available about the fate of a minimum of 250 fishermen, mostly natives of Tamil Nadu, who had gone for fishing in 25 long-line fishing boats from the Thoppumpady fishing harbor in Kochi several days before the cyclone hit the State.
“There is no information about these boats or the fishermen on board. Those who have returned are saying that 14 boats had sunk in the rough sea,” said a union leader. A total of large 217 long-line fishing boats had left Thoppumpady before the cyclone, he said, adding that many boats had reached the shores of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka after the storm.
Meanwhile, The Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday decided to hand over the Rs 20 lakh assistance the Government had announced for families of each of the fishermen killed in the cyclone in a single installment. “For this the families need not go to Government offices. Officials will visit them at their places,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said after a Cabinet meeting.
The Government would soon announce the financial assistance for the fishermen who had lost their boats and nets and those who had been incapacitated for work due to injuries suffered in the cyclone would be given an assistance of Rs 5 lakh, the Chief Minister said. “Houses would be constructed at suitable locations for those whose houses were destroyed in the cyclone,” he said.
Pinarayi also said that Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had accepted the State’s request for continuing the forces’ search in the sea for the missing fishermen. The State Government had submitted a report to the Centre seeking a financial assistance of Rs 1,843 crore to meet the emergencies arising out of Cyclone Ockhi, he added.