Amphan in Eastern India: An Appeal for Support

Pratichi Priyambada, doctoral candidate in History at UCI, shares the impact of one of the worst cyclones in decades off the coast of Bengal.

As I continuously refreshed my social media pages on May 20th, devastating images of the destruction of my hometown Kolkata flooded my timeline. I frantically tried to reach my parents via phone but to no avail. As I struggled to connect to my family, one of the worst cyclones in decades completely ravaged 8,000 square miles of coastal Bengal.  On May 20th, the cyclonic storm, Amphan (Um-Pan in Thai meaning “sky”), made landfall along the coasts of the Indian states of West Bengal, Odisha and the southern coast of Bangladesh. Striking with an average wind speed of 93-112 miles/hour, Amphan utterly wiped away portions of Southern Bengal and, especially, the Sunderbans—the mangrove forest region lying at the mouth of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta.

The southern part of my home state, West Bengal, along with Bangladesh, constitute the world’s largest delta, formed by the confluence of two large river systems: the Ganga and the Brahmaputra. Due to its location, the Bengal delta is no stranger to cyclones, but none in two decades has been more severe than Amphan, whose epicenter lay at the mouth of the delta. According to government sources, Amphan incurred a damage of US$13 billion in the state of West Bengal alone—approximately equivalent to 7 percent of the state’s GDP. Widespread wreckage spanned across the state capital of Kolkata and its adjoining districts of North and South 24 Parganas as well as East Medinipur—home to over 25 million individuals. As I was preparing this draft a month back, 86 people had already succumbed to death. Kolkata recorded widespread flooding, overturning of vehicles, uprooting of trees, and the destruction of public buildings and roads.  The city also witnessed the complete flooding of Asia’s largest book market in College Street—popularly known as the Boi-Para (locality of books)—inflicting irreparable loss to the academic community.  Overturned electricity poles and cellphone towers snapped mobile phone networks, disrupted fresh water supply, and submerged much of the city into total darkness. As I managed to resume communication with my parents briefly on the 21st, they informed me that many areas in Kolkata were still without electricity, water and network connectivity. Even after a week, many areas in Kolkata and its neighboring affected districts remained without electricity and unconnected from the world. While the damages in the metropolis remained primarily restricted to the lack of electricity and drinking water, the state’s rural hinterland fared much worse, with at least one million homes destroyed in the district of South 24 Parganas alone. Worse, several river embankments collapsed, causing an inundation of saline water into the agricultural land, destroying both standing crops and future productivity. With agriculture forming the key occupation for the vast majority of households, at least a million farming households in this district alone face an unprecedented loss of their livelihood over the upcoming years. 


College Street after the storm. Courtesy Business Insider.


Kolkata after Amphan. Courtesy Economic Times

The Bengal delta is characterized by one of the world’s largest mangrove forests, the Sunderbans, recognized as an UNESCO world heritage site. Spread over 4,000 square miles across both West Bengal and Bangladesh, the forests are home to over 400 variants of wildlife.  Located at the mouth of the delta, the sturdy mangroves form the delta’s natural bulwark against incoming storms and cyclones. Amphan’s ferocity obliterated vast swathes of the mangrove forests, already under the threat of extinction in recent years due to climate change. In addition to its vast biodiversity, the forests provide livelihood to around 4 million people, who derive their livelihood mostly from small scale farming, crab and prawn fisheries, and honey gathering honey. With wind speeds exceeding 100 miles/hour, Amphan crashed through the Sunderbans, rendering tens of thousands of people homeless and at the mercy of surging water levels due to the high tide. In addition, unlike other cyclones, the south-north direction of Amphan aided the influx of sea water into inhabited areas, making agricultural plots completely unfit for cultivation in the near future. In the past, victims of the devastation caused by cyclones have sought alternative employment through urban migration. However, owing to the social distancing measures currently in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this seems hardly feasible this time.


Eastern India after Amphan wreckage. Courtesy UN News.

This is an effort to highlight the extent of the humanitarian and ecological crises millions of people in South Asia are currently experiencing under the double assaults of Amphan and COVID-19. More than a month since Amphan has passed, but the situation in certain areas of Southern Bengal still remains the same. On the personal front, many members of my extended family, friends and acquaintances remain stranded in flooded buildings and fields without basic supplies of food, drinking water, and electricity. Days have passed since we heard from our family members living in Namkhana, adjacent to the Sunderbans. Several of the kacca houses (semi-permanent structures made of earth and other materials) of our relatives in East Midnapore were washed away. Countless others have had similar experiences. To add to our woes, with the COVID-19 outbreak, prompt relief work has become an impossibility with the state healthcare system on the verge of collapse.


Villagers salvage items from their house damaged by Cyclone Amphan in West Bengal. Original Caption courtesy Al Jazeera.

In comparison to other natural disasters worldwide, Amphan can be placed in the same bracket as the Amazon and Australian wild fires. Last year, we saw how wildfires in the Amazon rainforests and Australia caused irreparable damage to the environment. Similarly, the Sunderbans, as the ecological barrier of the Bengal delta, is also on the verge of extinction, especially with the recent onslaught of Amphan. While state authorities are busy concentrating on material losses, scant attention is being paid to the intangible environmental damage that this cyclone has caused by rupturing the unique ecosystem of the Sunderbans. We can only shudder in apprehension about the outcome of another ecological disaster in the world. Therefore, this is a sincere appeal to the international community to support and contribute to the relief and rehabilitation initiatives currently in-progress in Eastern India and Bangladesh. I am enclosing a list of reliable relief organizations currently working on the ground to provide basic supplies to the affected people. We understand that times are dire, especially in the midst of a global pandemic and rising intolerance across countries. That is why, even a little help will go a long way.

Relief Resources (for West Bengal) *:
1. A google doc listing of all local, national, and international organizations engaged in Amphan relief work in West Bengal. Please feel free to choose any of the organizations listed here.

2. For residents and students in the US and elsewhere for international payments:




Sources:
Storm kills 19 in Calcutta
Cyclone Amphan: A Glimpse Of The Devastation In Coastal Bengal
How Cyclone Amphan Has Spelt Doom For West Bengal's Covid-19 Efforts
Blind to Amphan
Death knell for Sunderbans
Cut Off After Cyclone Amphan, The Sunderbans Losses Are Yet Unknown
Cyclone Amphan: Survivors return to face destruction left by storm
Fears rise for sinking Sundarbans
As the seas around the Sundarbans erode coasts, the threat of displacement grows
This vanishing forest protects the coasts—and lives—of two countries

*There are separate relief networks for Odissa and Bangladesh. If you are interested, please email me.