Trichy: Thousands of acres of banana plantations bore the brunt of the gusty winds of cyclone Gaja in Trichy, Thanjavur, Nagappattinam, Karur and Pudukkottai districts on Friday. Uprooted and broken banana plants with the bunch in production stage upset hundreds of farmers in the delta region. Though paddy crops escaped the onslaught to an extent as they were short, coconut palms and lemon plants were devastated in Marungapuri areas.In Trichy district, acres of banana plantations in Lalgudi, Srirangam and Andhanallur blocks lay shattered much to the shock of the farmers. M Periyasamy from Lalgudi was stunned to see almost his entire banana crop on 15 acres brought down. “Only around two acres of plants withstood the winds in my banana farm. Several of them were uprooted and broken. This was the first time I witnessed such a trail of destruction by a cyclone in our area,” said the 48-year-old farmer. The farmers claimed that about 2,000 acres of banana cultivation in Lalgudi block alone suffered huge damage in the wind.“Preliminary assessment put the extent of damage at 80 % in Lalgudi area alone. The district administration should swing into action to assess the damage in order to get compensation for the loss,” said the state spokesperson of Bharatiya Kisan Sangam, N Veerasekaran. Trichy district collector K Rajamani said that the process of assessing the damage would begin shortly. The entire stretch of both the banks of Cauvery covering Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagappattinam is rich in banana cultivation and the farmers estimate that 15,000 acres of the crop had been damaged.

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