Some already are drinking contaminated water in the flooded streets. A loudspeaker van has been traveling around Paradip warning people to avoid the foul, stagnant water from the tidal surge that accompanied the cyclone. It will be at least a week before relief will reach all parts of the state. Vast areas of the disaster zone remain inaccessible after one of the most powerful super cyclones ever to strike India roared ashore from the Bay of Bengal Friday, slamming the coast with 160 mph winds and 30-foot tidal waves and washing away the mud homes of millions. It was sheer horror.
Many roads remain impassable.
Photo courtesy of the BBC Parents clutched their babies over their heads as they tried to run from the waves but sometimes the ferocious winds would whisk them away. I saw an old man who was clutching his child desperately for several minutes as the waves came in. She was too stunned to say her name or what had happened to her family in Paradwip. A boy tried to reach his flooded home on an inflated tire. Photo courtesy of the BBC Army and police still have not reached the hardest hit areas and the port of Paradwip has been cut off since it was thrashed by the storm for eight hours last Friday.