Villagers still fighting hungry tide

KUMIRMARI (SOUTH 24-PARGANAS): A month after Cyclone Aila hit the Sunderbans, the hungry tide continues to be fought by thousands of hungrier people.
On half-empty stomachs, diarrhoea-ridden villagers many of them without homes are still working to keep the rivers at bay. With little governmental help and sapped by a constant exodus of people away from the region, enthusiasm is low and progress slow.
Late on Saturday, at Majherpara in Kumirmari, about a hundred descended on a damaged embankment in a last ditch effort to plug a 500-metre breach before another high tide came in.
"Work started here only a week back after a number of contractors backed out. There aren't enough men, so women and children have joined to help. But it will be difficult to finish the work here without an earth-moving equipment which the contractor has promised to bring on Sunday," local panchayat member Tapan Mandol said.
On Sunday morning, though, there was no sign of any machine as the small army of worker regrouped to protect the embankment from the tide. A representative of the contractor claimed the equipment was being loaded onto a boat at Dhamakhali.
External help notwithstanding, many members of the 210 families in the area stayed away from the embankment work. Of those abstaining, a significant number are afflicted by diarrhoea.
"There has been little to eat here since the cyclone and people are weak. On top of that, because of the water, many are getting diarrhoea. The collapsed houses have to be reconstructed as the rains are coming. But despite this, some are going to work at the embankments so that they can buy food with the money," said Sundari Naskar.
Her family of seven, who have been living in a makeshift hutment after the cyclone, has received only
6 kg of rice and some lentil from the panchayat in the last month. Of her existing food stock, little is left. The family is almost entirely dependent on non-governmental aid.
Illness apart, a substantial migration away from the island has also hit the workforce.
"The governmental help has only been a fraction of what we had expected. Whatever little help we are getting now will stop soon. Without farming, there will be an employment problem in a few months. If one can leave, it makes no sense to stay back. People of already leaving and many more will leave soon," Mondol predicted.
With the crucial embankment reconstruction process still floundering a month after Aila arrived, if the indicators are accurate, the transition from relief to reconstruction in the affected parts of the Sunderbans is likely to be more tedious than expected.