Post noon on Oct 29 when suddenly all went dark.
It was Oct 31, 1999. almost two days after the worst tidal invasion on Odisha.

An almost apocalyptic oceanic storm hit the state. The eye of the storm was Ersama in Jagatsingpur. We were in the office, with colleagues, when the wind velocity crossed 150 plus in the capital city Bhubaneswar itself, over 100 km away from the eye of the storm. Not difficult to imagine what had happened there in Ersama.

Landscape of terror

Ersama was shaken to its foundation. Ersama,  Naghori, Dahibar, Padampur, etc were just pulverised by a 260 kmph plus strong oceanic outrage.

A visit to Dahibar was unnerving. The entire village was razed to earth literally. Among the remnant ruins, one could notice the dead bodies of two infants, lying amid the debris on their faces. A scene that could move a stone.

Nothing was left. Some were quite detached from the claws of disaster. Because they were dead in minutes.  A floating blanket of dead animals in thousands covered the ponds and canals everywhere.

Thousands of human bodies falling on their faces on paddy fields, outskirts, some hidden under leaves and hay, shocked us. Victims of 15 to 20 maters high tidal waves splashing down to claim any living being down.

Where silence ruled

We had reached Ersama on Oct 31 via Paradeep to shoot one of the worst effects of nature`s fury. Deads became common while ones alive were left to sob with pain and nostalgia. Our night at Ersama on Oct.31 was convulsive and dreary.

It was perplexed with silence, not even nocturnal insects left to hum. Disturbing silence, even harsh dropping of water from the bottle into the throat resonated in the enclosure we spent the night in Ersama Tahsil office. Night of abandonment and terror.

We were to walk the next morning among those who were buried dead by the tidal furry 21 years back. The lives of people there were pushed back to 20 yrs almost within a span of 36 hrs of blitzkrieg.

An official estimate said over ten thousand people were killed by that Super Cyclone and more than four lakh livestock fell victims to the killer cyclone.

People are really brave and they soon wriggled out of the clutches of dismay, so also nature. Wounds have been heeled but come October 29, it brings back the memories of a time when expanses over 14 districts those in hours turned to become landscapes of horror.

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