* At 23.55 hours Train No. 653 Pamban-Danushkodi with 100 passengers and five railway staff gets submerged killing all.
* Over 200 people in Danushkodi were killes by tidal waves.
* About 1,500 to 2,000 people died in the cyclone.
Scenes of sea gulls flocking the coast and fishermen busy pulling karai valai (seine net) are snapshots from this tourist town, but the visitor just can’t escape the all pervading ruins.
Half-a-century ago, Dhanushkodi was a flourishing town till a cyclone destroyed it on the night of December 22, 1964 . The storm wiped out almost all traces of human settlements. From then on, it resembles a ghost town.
A pillar stands in memory of those who had lost their lives. And, as if it was a witness, the pillar tells the tragic story of how 115 people on a passenger train and more than 200 in the coastal town were swallowed by monstrous waves.
When the cyclone hit, K. Muthumari was a month-old baby. She has survived to tell her tale.
“My mother Vazhavandan often recalled the horrific experience. She used to tell me that she and my father saved me and my two elder sisters, spending the whole night sitting on top of a sand dune,” she says.
After the cyclone left trails of devastation, they, like others, moved out. Two decades later, she returned to the desolate place with her fisherman husband for a living. Since then, she has been coming here every day for the past 14 years to run her idly shop.
Amid the remains of a quaint church, police barracks and customs office stands a stupi erected on May 6, 1933 by the then panchayat president, Janab Kon Meera Sahib Bahadur, in commemoration of the majesty’s silver jubilee.
The pilgrims take a holy dip in the sea, take selfies amid the ruins, shop at the shell shops, before returning to Rameswaram from this eastern tip of the island, leaving behind eerie evenings.
“My parents stayed back and continued to live here, making a living by fishing and collecting shells,” says Kannagi, a fish seller.
Life, however, still goes on for the small section of the fisherfolk like her who continue to inhabit Kambipadu and Palam — the ship harbour areas that once provided a sea link to Talaimannar in Sri Lanka.
Boat mail, the lost link
S. Vijay Kumar reports:
“The train was caught in the cyclonic storm and was presumably hit by high tidal waves as a result of which the whole train got submerged in water while entering Dhanushkodi station. Information has been received that a portion of the engine is visible six inches above water.”
This was the bulletin issued by Southern Railway almost 48 hours after tidal waves, triggered by a cyclonic storm, swallowed a passenger train that was waiting for signal to enter the Dhanushkodi station on the night of December 22, 1964. With communication virtually cut off, the impact of the cyclone could reach Chennai only after several hours.
According to M. Robert Rajasekaran, former Divisional Engineer of the Madurai Division, the six-coach Pamban-Dhanushkodi passenger (Train No. 653), hauled by a British-built steam locomotive, was at the outer signal. With the Dhanushkodi station premises already under water, the Station Master and a handful of employees were on the top of a water tank watching the ill-fated train go under as it was hit by giant waves. There were reports that huge pieces of the train’s wooden carriages were washed ashore along the coast in northern Sri Lanka, he said.
“With no sight of any track ahead and the rear submerged, the driver gave a long whistle and decided to move forward…that was when the waves struck killing all the passengers and the crew. Though the initial reports put the casualty at 115, based on the number of tickets issued at Pamban, it was suspected that the toll would be around 200 as more passengers were said to have travelled without ticket that night,” Mr. Rajasekaran said.
The route, which once linked India and Sri Lanka on the ‘Boat Mail,’ was never restored, though the remains of the cyclone still stand muted at Dhanushkodi, reminding one of the scale of the destruction wrought by nature that day.
Land of no return
T. Ramakrishnan reports:
CHENNAI: Waiting to turn 80, M.M. Rajendran can’t forget his days as the Ramanathapuram Collector.
In December 1964, four months into his new job, the young IAS officer was planning a brief visit to Chennai to celebrate Christmas with family. Instead, he spread the spirit of Santa by touring the cyclone-hit areas, providing the healing touch and much-needed relief to the affected families.
Those days, the Ramanathapuram Collector operated from Madurai, 160 km away from Rameshwaram. On the morning of December 23, the police informed him through wireless of the cyclone.
“Dhanushkodi was wiped out. But the 1964 cyclone had a bigger impact. At least 1,500-2,000 people in coastal areas died. There was no official declaration on the abandonment of Dhanushkodi,” he recalls.
“There was no advance information from the Meteorological Department. Otherwise, we would have evacuated people from Dhanushkodi. The passenger train would not have been operated. Officially, the train had 110 passengers. Given the fact that it had six bogies, there could have been easily 300 passengers because many might have travelled without ticket,” says Mr. Rajendran.
The civil servant went on to become Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary (1988-1991) and Odisha Governor (1999-2004), but the memories of the cyclone have not left him as he recalls every detail even now.
After his transfer in 1965, he never went back to the “ghost town.”
