Houses cave in as tidal waves lash Odisha's Ganjam district

As many as 27 houses have caved in at Ramayapatna village in Odisha's Ganjam district in the past one week due to coastal erosion, officials said here on Sunday.

Around a dozen more are on the verge of collapse as high tidal waves continue to lash the fishermen's village in Chikiti block of the district, they said.

Hara Prasad Bhoi, the tehsildar of Chikiti, said the district collector's attention has been drawn to the situation and measures were being taken to deal with the situation.

According to the officials, Berhampur Sub-Collector S D Bhausaheb, who visited the village on Saturday, has asked the fishermen to shift to new houses constructed under the Odisha Disaster Recovery Project (ODRP).

A villager, however, said many people were reluctant to move to their new houses as it was easier to go fishing from Ramayapatna.

Moreover, not all of them have been allotted houses under the scheme, L Bhagi Raju explained.

"People here are in the grip of fear... Several houses close to the sea are on the verge of collapse," Raju, who is also the member of a village committee, said.

Girija Bhusan Mallick, the revenue inspector of Sonepur, said people living in thatched houses in the village have been provided with pucca houses at Chandrabedha, about one-and-a-half km from their village.

"In all, 331 families got houses under the scheme. The village has around 500 families. The government has decided to construct a one-metre-long guard wall near the beach to protect the village from erosion," he said.

Sources said a number of houses on the beach are just hanging with the sand beneath exposed to rapid erosion.

The village, which was about 750 metres from the coastline around seven years ago, is now less than 100 meters away from the sea, they added.