Count your Blessings...AID is NEEDED...!!...........Red Cross ect....................By Neelesh Misra
The Associated Press
P H U L N A K H A R A, India, Nov. 3 ? Bulldozers
dumped bloated corpses onto the beaches today
in cyclone-ravaged eastern India, where troops
worked to protect relief convoys from angry,
starving mobs.
Hundreds of people tried to stop
every car, bus or jeep that passed,
seizing not only food but whatever was
available. Army Col. Shokin Chauhan
said there were widespread complaints
of looting, robbery and women being
raped.
With 20 million people affected by
the cyclone and floods, ?the biggest
challenge now is to deal with increasing instances of
lawlessness and vandalism,? said Jagganath Patnaik, the
state?s revenue minister.
A senior army officer involved in the rescue operation
told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that
10,000 to 20,000 were dead. That would make the storm
India?s worst, topping the 10,000 killed in a 1971 cyclone.
State officials have confirmed only 250 deaths.
?Sheer Horror?
Army and police, unable to reach the worst-hit areas,
feared that epidemics and violence would increase the
death toll from the cyclone, which flattened homes, toppled
trees and buried rice fields under a sheet of water.
?Everyone is drowned,
and there is nothing to eat,?
said a tall woman in a dirty,
wet sari.
She was too stunned to
say her name or what had
happened to her family in
Paradwip, a port whipped
by winds and waves for
eight hours on Friday.
?It was sheer horror.
The water just rushed in
from the sea and thousands
were running in every
direction,? said Raj Kumar
Behara, an engineer who
fled Paradwip to a small village.
Parents clutched babies above their heads as they ran
from the waves, only to feel the fierce winds snatch the
children away.
?I saw an old man who was clutching his child
desperately for several minutes as the waves came in. Then
he let go, the child was sucked under the waters and he
was thrown in a different direction,? Behara said.
Deadly Weather
Coastal India and Bangladesh are fertile ground for farming and
fishing, but can be ravaged by severe storms. Below are some
of the deadliest storms the regions bordering the Indian Ocean
in the last 300 years.
1737 India. Hooghly River Cyclone. 300,000 dead.
1789 India. 20,000 dead after cyclone.
1822 Bangladesh cyclone kills 40,000
1864 India. 50,000 dead.
1876 India. 200,000 dead.
1882 India. 100,000 dead.
1898 Bangladesh cyclone kills at least 175,000
1942 Calcutta, India. 40,000 dead.
1970 Cyclone in India and Bangladesh kills 500,000.
1971 Northeastern India. 10,000 dead.
1977 Southeastern India 20,000 dead.
1991 Cyclone and tidal surge in Bangladesh kill 138,000.
Scores of boats had sunk, the port?s railway connections
were submerged, and survivors said hundreds of trawlers
and fishermen were missing.
The stench of thousands of decaying pig, cow and goat
carcasses filled the air, and port employees collected
bodies left behind by the storm. A bulldozer scooped up
corpses, blackened with mud and rot, and dumped them
on the sand.
?I could not identify a single one of my workers,? said
D.K. Basu, who works for Paradwip port. ?It?s ghastly.?
More Rain Falls
The army has still not been able to reach Paradwip five
days after the cyclone hit. The navy cleared a channel for
two landing craft, which delivered food Tuesday for 1,500
people.
Hundreds of thousands are starving, thirsty, homeless,
and sick. Rain was still falling today, and rivers overflowed
their banks.
In Cuttack, knotted high-tension wires were strewn in
the wet streets, and people hung dripping clothes out to
dry on electrical wires. After dusk, the fires from burning
tires that people lit against the night chill provided the only
light.
In Bhubaneswar, the state capital, residents stood by
and watched 50 men break into a government-run grocery
store and calmly walk away with everything in sight.
International aid workers were beginning to reach the
area, however, and President Clinton announced a
donation of more than $2 million in food and $100,000 in
tents and plastic sheeting.
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