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The
Sunderbans is the world’s largest mangrove delta and home to more than 4.5
million people. It is spread over two districts - South 24 Parganas and North
24 Parganas and has 102 islands of which 54 are inhabited.
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Agencies
Kolkata: A woman salvages her
belongings from her house damaged due to Cyclone Amphan, at Kakdwip in the
Sunderbans, South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal, India on Friday, May 22,
2020.
Devastated by cyclone Amphan almost a week ago, several
villages on remote islands of the Sunderbans and the coastal belt in West
Bengal are now facing an acute drinking water crisis but authorities claim 70%
of the water connections have been restored
The Sunderbans is the world’s largest mangrove delta and
home to more than 4.5 million people. It is spread over two districts - South
24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas and has 102 islands of which 54 are
inhabited.
The cyclone destroyed dozens of pipelines that used to supply
drinking water to the islands surrounded by rivers fed with saline tidal water
from the sea. Salt water from these rivers has gushed into the villages through
breaches in the embankments filling up the sweet water ponds and hundreds of
tube wells still remain submerged in saline water even six days after the
calamity.
“I need to walk for
nearly 30 minutes, stand in a queue behind more than 50 minutes, fill up a
bucket and an earthen pitcher from the only functional tube well in the area
and then walk back home,” said Swapna Sardar, 36, a resident of Rangabelia
village in Gosaba, a block in South 24 Parganas district that has been totally
devastated by the storm.
Hundreds of villages in several blocks such as Gosaba,
Kultali, Kakdwip, Namkhana, Patharpramima in South 24 Parganas and Minakha,
Sandeshkhali, Hingalganj and Hasnabad in North 24 Parganas have been
devastated. Many are still inundated.
“There is an acute
shortage of drinking water. Nearly 16 km of embankments have been breached and
storm surge have destroyed the sluice gates. Saline water has gushed into the
villages inundating the ponds and tubewells. We are providing water pouches.
Huge drums filled with water are being distributed in the villages in vehicles
and boats,” said Manturam Pakhira, Sunderban affairs minister.
Locals in the villages said that dozens of tube wells are
lying defunct for a long time. While some have not been repaired since they
were destroyed by cyclone Aila in May 2019, many others became useless when
cyclone Bulbul hit in November 2019. Many others became non-operational due to
poor maintenance and no maintenance.
“There were three
tubewells in my village. But only one work is functional now. Repeated appeals
to the local MLA have not yielded any results. Now after the cyclone there is
crowding near the tubewells every day,” said Antara Mahata, a resident of
Gobindarampur village in Kakdwip block.
Most ponds will have to be emptied and treated before they
are filled again for the water to become fit for drinking.
“We will have to
treat the ponds with lime and potassium permanganate before monsoon so that
fresh water can fill them up again. Dozens of pumps have been deployed to drain
out the water that has inundated the villages. We also need to clean the
tubewells,” said S Mitra, BDO of Gosaba.
While most of the islands in the South 24 Parganas part of
the Sunderbans are battling a drinking water crisis, one island in the same
district has put up a starkly different picture despite being equally hit. It
is the Sagar Island at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal.
Every year the island hosts lakhs of people from across
India during the Ganga Sagar mela. The infrastructure that has been developed
to handle such huge congregation has come handy for the district administration
while facing the crises – Amphan during the time of the coronavirus pandemic.
“During the Ganga
Sagar mela we have to produce water pouches for millions of pilgrims every day.
Machines that can produce water pouches are already installed and huge water
tankers of the public health engineering department were already there on the
island. Those have been deployed. We are much better off,” said Sudipta Mandal
BDO of Sagar.
The saline water that has gushed into the villages has also
killed all the sweet water fish including rohu, kalta and pangash.
Dead fish could be seen floating in ponds Gobindarampur
village in Kakdwip two days after the cyclone. Villagers had to collect the
dead fishes and dump them.
“The dead fish had to
be collected and buried. We will have to drain out the salt water from the
ponds and treat the bed with lime. Once the monsoon starts the ponds will be
again filled with fresh rain water. But it would take some time to rear fish as
we had seen after cyclone Aila,” said Sudam Roy, a resident of Rangabelia
village in Gosaba where dozens of such ponds have been destroyed.
He did not say how long it would take to restore normal
drinking water supply across all the islands.
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