Tsunami
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Tsunami's
saline water damages farm lands
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A
paddy field rendered inarable by
the saline water in a village in Nagapattinam district
in Tamil Nadu
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Chennai: The farmers in southern India who may have
escaped the wrath of the tsunamis last month still consider
themselves miserable as it has rendered farming impossible
for years to come. The tsunami, which struck the southeast
coast of India has not only damaged the standing paddy crops,
but the brackish sea water which flooded the fields has
made the soil unsuitable for cultivation.
Over
130,000 hectares of paddy crop farm land in Nagapattinam
district of Tamil Nadu state, the worst affected in the
tsunami, has been affected. Tsunami has killed more than
17,000 people in India, 8,000 of them in Tamil Nadu alone.
"The area grows single crop in a year. Now even this has
been destroyed by the tsunami waves. What will we do?" wondered
Kalyana Sundaram, a farmer. Arumugam Kannar, another farmer,
said: "When the paddy crops were about to ripe, the tsunami
water entered the fields and destroyed everything. This
is a single crop area and we have even lost this now. Moreover,
now the soil has also turned saline because of which it
has become unfit for cultivation." Paddy crop on about 4,000
hectares was affected in Tamil Nadu's other coastal areas
of Vedaranyam, Velankanni and Sirkhazi in the December 26
tsunami.
The
livelihood of 10,000 families, dependent on extracting salt
from sea water, in the coastal town of Vedaranyam state,
has been crippled. The deadly tsunamis, hurtling at a speed
of 800 km an hour, washed away the salt pans in minutes,
depositing much slush and silt. Many of these workers are
under trauma and still scared to get back to work again.
"Still we are scared of working in the salt pans because
we never know when will tsunami strike again. Moreover,
we are just near to the sea which makes us more vulnerable,"
said Arunachalam.
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A
salt worker standing in the midst of a saltpan at
Vedaranyam village in Tamil Nadu, which has been washed
away by tsunami waves. The tsunami disaster has destroyed
the saltpans of Vedaranyam , affecting the livelihood
of 10,000 families
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The
seasonal business of preparing salt-pans requires an investment
of 2,500 rupees an acre. Now with the tsunami ravaging this
region, the capital requirement for restoration of the salt
beds would be much higher. "The tsunami waves not only brought
water but also mud and silt with it, which is now stagnating
in salt pans. More than 3,000 acres of pans have been damaged.
And now we have to spend at least 25,000 rupees to start
again our work which is very difficult for the poor salt
pan owners," said Meenachi Sundaram, President of Small
Scale Salt Manufactures Federation at Vedaranyam.
The
salt pans along this narrow coastal stretch have a rich
history as they are associated with Mahatma Gandhi's salt
"Satyagraha". When the father of the nation led the Dandi
March in 1930 to defy the British ban on making salt from
the sea in western Gujarat, a humble "khadi worker" down
south, Sardar Vedaratnam Pillai, also took the villagers
to the sea shore in defiance of the repressive salt law.
- Jan 31, 2005
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