People on edge as waves pound coastal areas in Thiruvananthapuram
The restless sea has begun battering the second line of houses.
Thiruvananthapuram: To get a vague idea of what it is to live along the edge of the coast during monsoon, imagine living along the fringes of a forest full of man-eaters.
By Wednesday noon, officially the first day of the southwest monsoon, the row of 125-odd houses closest to the Valiyathura coast was mauled; these houses looked so crushed that it seemed as if some mighty beast had chewed them and then spat them out.
The restless sea has begun battering the second line of houses. If the first line of houses were mostly thatched ones, the second line consists mainly of concrete houses.
The families in the first row had no choice but to abandon their houses. Some have shifted to the Valiyathura LPS nearby, but most have moved in with relatives nearby.
With the first row demolished, the second row of houses stand exposed. It is the backs of these houses that face the sea. Families living in them have refused to shift to the refugee camp in the school.
“We don’t want to exist like cattle. This house is our world,” said Archibald Bindu, a fisherman. The sea wall has crumbled, more so in the stretch before Archibald’s house. Sand bags, the only protection remaining, are frequently scattered by the battering waves.
Archibald has to run wild over the retreating waves, lifting the floating bags and putting them back in position. The retreating waves were also pulling the earth along with it, causing houses along the coast to sink little by little.
Archibald at least has a plastered house with proper windows and doors. Some 10 houses to the right, 55-year-old Lourde has found it futile to attempt to keep the sea out of her kitchen.
The tarpaulin sack and broken asbestos sheets she had valiantly used to block the waves have been blown away. She now sits resigned on a hollow brick in front of her unplastered house watching the waves charging towards her and hearing it breaking into her kitchen.“Let anything happen, I am not going to move out of this place,” she said.