Ten-month-old Daniel is too young to be fighting the ferocious waves of the Arabian Sea. But around midnight on Wednesday, the toddler was woken up rudely from his baby sleep by huge waves that barged into the ramshackle hut his family calls home, and was almost swept out into the courtyard before his father caught hold of him by his tiny feet.
Raju, Varghese, Pathrose, Gerald and Jeremy, all of whose huts are located barely a couple of metres from what remains of the sea wall near the Cheruresmi Centre at Velankanni Junction in Valiathura, say the sea has begun tormenting the coastal residents slightly early this year. If it were huge tidal waves that lashed their homes last night, the perennial threat of sea erosion is just a few weeks away, they say.
Already, 51 families from the Valiathura coast have been shifted to a relief camp set up at the Valiathura Government Fisheries School, according to Tony Oliver, councillor. He says sea erosion is expected to be more brutal this year, with the initial signs from the sea indicating as much.
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What perplexes the coastal residents is not just the stubborn sea that has kept on hammering their lives year after year. They are also perturbed by the lax approach of the government towards relief and rehabilitation proposals, pending for years, for Valiathura and the troubled coastal belt of the city.
Last year, the then District Collector K.N. Satheesh had mooted a rehabilitation package as the only permanent solution to the misery faced by around 300 families there. The report had suggested two sites at Muttathara as suitable locations for initiating a rehabilitation package, clubbing available State and Central schemes for housing and other infrastructure.
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The report also pointed out that the existing sea wall was in a dilapidated condition, which was accentuating the impact of tidal attacks.
So far, according to Mr. Oliver, the only development on this report was an assurance to hand over two acres at Muttathara, with the idea of rehabilitating 131 families in the first phase, apart from permission to set up a temporary relief camp on 50 cents of land there.
Flooded groundsThe area this year has so far lost two football grounds to the sea — the St. Antony’s High School football ground and the Cheriyathura St. Roch’s ground — both of which were partially swallowed by the sea, says Mr. Oliver. The sea wall had suffered damage over the last one year at Beemapally, Cheriyathura, Kuzhivilakom, and Kochuthoppu. A continuing shortage of drinking water, with JICA pipes laid nearly a year ago yet to see water, is adding to the misery.