Phailin changes face of ‘green’ Maa Tara Tarini hill Shrine

Nature’s fury in the form of the Phailin cyclone has devastated everything at the famous Tara Tarini hill shrine except the main temple on the hill top.

The 965 feet high hill, which was proud of its lush green vegetation cover, has become totally naked with the brown rocky base showing up. Most of the large trees on this hill have got uprooted or massively damaged by the cyclonic storm. According to secretary of the Tara Tarini Development Board (TTDB) Pramod Panda, they included several decade old banyan and peepul trees. “Due to its lush green nature, this hill was being called Purnagiri or Kumari parvat. But the cyclone seems to have snatched away that identity from the hill,” he said. A cashew plantation of the hill shrine at Sholaghara near the hill has also been completely devastated.

The ropeway station at the foothills of the famous Tara Tarini
mangled with uprooted trees in the aftermath of Cyclone Phailin 

According to the priests and authorities of the TTDB, this hill shrine had not faced such devastation during the two cyclones that hit Ganjam district in 1999.

Major attraction

A major attraction of this hill shrine was the rope way to the hill top. It is an irony that it was to be restarted recently after renovation. But the cyclone has caused much damage to the ropeway which would surely delay its inception.

Although the towers and cables of the ropeway are in place, they have to be checked up to ascertain whether they are strong enough after the cyclone. The carriages of the ropeway have been damaged.

All buildings at the hill top and most buildings at the foot of the hill were damaged by the cyclone. No structure has remained at the hill top except the newly-renovated temple which was completed in 2010.

This temple had been built as per traditional Rekha style of Odia temple architecture. It again proved that Rekha style of temple architecture as per which famous Jagannath temple of Puri and Lingaraj temple of Bhubaneswar have been built can with stand major cyclones.

The stairway and the road to the hill top have been cleared up but drinking water supply and power connectivity to the hill top remains snapped.

For providing drinking water to devotees, water is being taken by tanker to the hill top.

Nature’s fury also had its impact on the flow of devotees to the hill shrine. Very few visitors are visiting the hill shrine and their number was not expected to rise even during the Kali Puja, the priests of the temple said.

Pre cyclone image

Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), southern division, Bikash Mohapatra, who also happens to be president of the TTDB, said all the developmental projects proposed for this hill shrine were also stalled due to the devastation caused by the cyclone.

The TTDB had planned to move around a ‘rath’ in Ganjam district to collect donations for the development of the hill shrine, which cannot be taken up now as the whole district is devastated by the cyclone and the rains and flood that followed.

“We are now planning to start online donation facility for the restoration and reconstruction works at the hill shrine so that devotees living outside could come over to help in rebuilding the hill shrine to its past glory.

Priority

“Our first priority now would be to regenerate the devastated vegetation of the hill shrine in consultation with the forest department,” said the RDC. The aim would be to plant those species of trees on the hill which would sustain cyclonic storms in future and would not get uprooted. But it is for sure for next few years the hill shrine would continue to have a barren look as a memory of wrath of nature which did not spare the hill which was a major centre of faith. Source: The Hindu

Ganjam worst hit by Cyclone Phailin, 2.4 lakh houses damaged

Uprooted trees on a road in Berhampur caused by cyclone Phailin (Source: The Hindu)

BERHAMPUR: Hit hardest by Cyclone 'Phailin', the coastal district of Ganjam is estimated to have suffered a loss of at least Rs 3,000 crore in the nature's fury which has deprived lakhs of people of their livelihood and damaged 2.4 lakh houses. Fishermen have suffered massive losses as their nets, boats and catamarans have been damaged. The farming community has also been hit with the standing paddy crop submerged in water. Moved by the tragedy that has struck the hapless people here, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, after a visit to relief camps, has ordered payment of Rs 500 each to the affected even as the administration will begin distribution of ration free of cost for two months.

Damaged pandals in Berhampur city in the aftermath of Cyclone Phailin (The Hindu)

Official sources have pegged the loss in Ganjam at more than Rs 3,000 crore in this district alone. Power infrastructure has been damaged to a great extent. "There has been extensive damage to the standing paddy crop as a huge area of land covering paddy fields has been submerged in rain water. There has been huge loss to horticulture farming also as an enormous number of mango and coconut trees have been uprooted," District Collector Krishan Kumar told PTI.

Source: MapsofIndia.Com

He said Ganjam is the worst-affected district in Odisha in terms of loss of livelihood and property. "More than 2.4 lakh houses have been damaged which includes fishermen huts and other 'kutcha' houses," Kumar said. A special relief package for fishermen will also be announced by the government. Fishermen have suffered massive losses as their nets, boats and catamarans have been damaged, the Collector said. He said nine people have lost lives due to cyclone in this district alone.]
Source: PTI, Business Standard, The Hindu

Source: The Sambad

Deserted Berhampur road post-Phailin (Source: The Hindu)

Source: OrissaPost

First person account of the night Phailin pounded Gopalpur (Rahul Kanwal, Headlines Today)

Gopalpur-on-Sea (Berhampur, Odisha) on a normal day

Now I know what 'lull before the storm' literally means. At 10 pm on Saturday evening, the howling winds and incessant rains lashing Gopalpur suddenly ceased. It seemed the worst was over. Cyclone Phailin had made land fall along the coast of Orissa in Gopalpur around 9:15 pm. For 45 minutes after the cyclone first struck, the wind Gods seemed to have gone crazy, blowing uncontrollably in all directions.

We were perched on a balcony, on the first floor, in a multi-storey building about 25 meters off the beach front of Gopalpur, a popular beach side resort town in Orissa, located about three hours from Bhubaneshwar. This was ground zero for Cylone Phailin, the deadliest storm to have hit India in the last decade and a half. The hotels in the area had all been ordered shut by the district administration, and the local fishermen living in hatched huts had been put up in a cyclone evacuation centre established at a Government run school located on a small hill away from the sea. We were the only journalists left reporting from the eye of the storm.

The other crews had moved away to the nearest town of Behrampur. At 10 pm, we were on Aajtak decribing the sudden silence around us. The winds and rain that had been pounding Gopalpur through the day had vanished. A few youngsters ventured out. They were whistling, singing and dancing. They seemed to be mocking the cyclone and had declared victory.

Then all of a sudden, just as unpredictably as it had ceased, the tempest was back. Twice as agressive, twice as deadly. It was the cyclone's turn to mock the hapless inhabitants of Gopalpur. Dogs in the area started barking in tandem. Children were wailing. The youngsters ran in back to save their lives. Our most reliable companion, the mobile network, crashed. The glass panes of our window were smashed. Water started lashing into our room. There was no where to hide. We went into the kitchen. But that wasn't much respite. The glass panes there too broke. Then the roof started leaking. The cyclone was closing in at us from all sides.

Soon the water was coming upto our knees. Our equipment, our clothes all got drenched. We had no where to go, no where to hide. I sat down on the bed behind the window, hoping to stay away from the fury of the winds and rain that was pounding  our room. But the pressure of the water was too fast. It was difficult to sit still. So we went into the dining room and stood in the only dry part of the house. There we huddled for two hours while the cyclone wrecked havoc outside. 

Our thoughts were with our OB engineer, Ritesh, who had been inside the OB van at 10 pm, helping us broadcast live from Gopalpur. The winds had struck with such ferocity and with such little notice, that Ritesh was unable to come out of the van. His Tata-407 was exposed to the full force of the cyclone and was being pushed around like a toy.

As the minutes passed, our concern increased. Ritesh was not still back and there was no news from him. Around 3 hours after Phailin made land fall, we heard our door being banged from outside. First we thought it was the cyclone, but when the knocking got louder, we opened the door. It was Ritesh, who had somehow stormed out of the van and made his way to the building. Antennas were strewn around the pathway as also glass shards from broken windows as Ritesh ran back in.

Ritesh was screaming like a man possessed. Widly describing his experience of being tossed around by winds blowing at faster than 200 kilometers per hour. There was no God he did not remember in the first two minutes of entering the flat.

Huddled in a corner, the night went by slowly. The minutes seemed than on any other other night in my life. It was still raining hard, when day broke the next morning. We ventured out to do a spot check at the fishermen's enclave nearby. A few villagers were milling around assessing the damage to a life time's savings. Relief and fear writ on the faces, relived at having survived but worried about piecing their lives back again.

Source: India Today

Cyclone Phailin set to hit Gopalpur-Berhampur coast in Odisha at a wind speed of 210-220 kmph tomorrow: Administration on tenterhooks

Cyclone Phailin has been predicted to move northwestwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh and Odisha close to Gopalpur-Berhampur coast (Odisha) by Saturday evening as a very severe cyclonic storm with a maximum sustained wind speed of 205-215 km per hour (kmph), the met department has said. "The very severe cyclonic storm, Phailin, over east central Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 15 kmph and lay centred about 520km south-southeast of Paradip, 530km from Gopalpur and 530km east-southeast of Kalingapatnam," the met department said in its latest bulletin. Squally winds speed reaching 45-55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph would commence along Odisha coast from Friday morning. It would increase in intensity with gale wind speed reaching 205-215 kmph along and off coastal districts of south Odisha at the time of landfall. State of the sea along and off Odisha coast will be rough to very rough from Friday morning and will become phenomenal on October 12. The cyclonic storm, Phailin, over east central Bay of Bengal moved westwards and intensified further and lay centred at 230 am on Friday near latitude 15.50N and longitude 89.000E, about 590km south-southeast of Paradip and 600km southeast of Gopalpur.

Similarly, though the met department forecast a storm surge of 1.5 metre to 2 metre in Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts in the coast on Thursday, on Friday it said the storm surge height will be around 2 metre to 2.5 metre above astronomical tide. This would inundate low lying areas of Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur in Odisha. A worried state government held several meetings and took stock of the situation in the changed circumstances. The state government has already asked the district authorities to start evacuation of people living in low lying areas close to the sea. Fearing high tide, the seaside hotels have been instructed to cancel their bookings. The possibility of a cyclone has prompted the twin city commensurate police to asses safety measures at large puja mandaps and tableaux made of bamboo, wood and other heavy materials.

'Not less than a super cyclone'

Cyclone Phailin with a windspeed of 220 kmph is turning into a super cyclone before making landfall on Saturday evening near Gopalpur in Odisha where the government has galvanised its machinery to deal with its impact and is evacuating people from low-lying areas. “The U.S. Navy has also forecast that the wind speed will be above 240 kmph. Therefore, the cyclone is not less than any super cyclone for us,” Special Relief Commissioner P.K. Mohapatra said.

He said that though the IMD on Thursday indicated that the wind speed would be limited to 185 kmph, it was now forecasting it at 220 kmph. Mr. Mohapatra said the IMD had declared the 1999 calamity as a super cyclone as the wind speed had crossed 220 kmph. “This time around, the wind speed is not much different than the previous super cyclone,” he said. Squalls with a wind speed of 45-55 kmph to 65 kmph have already started along Odisha coast since morning. “It would increase in intensity with gale wind speeds reaching 210-220 kmph along and off south Odisha at the time of landfall,” the IMD said in a bulletin categorised as an Orange Message.

It would make landfall near Gopalpur in Ganjam district on Saturday evening after crossing an area between Paradip in Odisha and Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The IMD said the cyclone over east central Bay of Bengal remained stationary and lay 520 km south-southeast of Paradip and 530 km southeast of Gopalpur. The IMD forecast a storm surge of 2.5 meter to 3.0 meter in Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts. A storm surge is a rise of the sea as a result of atmospheric pressure changes and winds associated with a storm.

Local Cautionary (LC-III) has been hoisted in all the ports in the State.The Navy, the Air Force, the National Disaster Response Force and the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force were ready for relief and rescue operations as soon as the cyclone hits the coast, Mr. Mohapatra said. A worried State government held meetings and evaluated the changed circumstances. “At least 28 teams of the National Disaster Response Forces are at the disposal of the Odisha government for evacuation and relief operations,” a senior official said after one such meeting. So far eight teams of NDRF, reaching having 20 personnel, have been deployed in Puri district, the official said. Revenue and Disaster Management Minister S.N. Patro said district collectors have been told to complete evacuation of people by Friday evening. “We do not want to take any chance,” Mr. Patro said, adding that shelters were ready.

Source: Times of India, IBN Live, amp; IMD, The Pioneer &The Hindu

Navaratri begins at Tara Tarini Shakti Peeth

Navratri is a festival dedicated to the worship of Goddess Maa Durga/ Shakti. The word Navaratri literally means nine nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Shakti/Devi are worshiped. Like in First Navratri – Shailputri, Second Navratri – Bhramcharini, Third Navratri – Chandraghanta, Fourth Navratri – Kushmanda, Fifth Navratri – Skandmata, Sixth Navratri – Kaatyayani, Seventh Navratri – Kaalratri, Eighth Navratri – Mahagauri and Ninth Navratri – Siddhiratri are worshipped. The tenth day is commonly celebrated as Vijayadashami or "Dussehra".

Vijayadashami or Durga Puja is a festival, which is celebrated in different ways in India. In major Shakti Peethas like Kamakshya, Daksinakali, Bimala, Vaishnodevi, Chamundeswari and particularly in Adi Shakti Peeth of Maa Tara Tarini the Durga Puja is observed for 16 days, starting from Krushna Paksha Ashtami to Shukla Paksha Navami of the Hindu Calendar, also known as Shodasa Dinatmaka Upachara. Navaratri is the last nine days of Shodasa Puja.