Bofors & After The gun fires again

Staff Correspondent

The death toll from a cyclone which ravaged Orissa could run into thousands.This infra-red satellite image shows the cyclone Saturday afternoon.

In one of the worst natural disasters ever to hit the country, the state of Orissa was ravaged by a cyclone on Friday and remains cut off from the rest of the world as telecommunication links snapped and even the chief minister’s hotline was not working. Two Union ministers, L.K.Advani and George Fernandes, could not even land in Bhubaneswar for a survey because of the destruction. There is absolutely no count of the hundreds who have either been killed or are missing and the world is still waiting for even initial estimates regarding the loss in which crores worth property have been lost and at least 1.5 million people affected. By last count, more than 100,000 houses have either been washed away or simply pulled down by the cyclone which registered a windspeed of more than 300 km per hour throughout 11 districts of the state with the port town of Paradip worst affected and the installation so badly ravaged that a complete overhaul would have to be undertaken.

The Centre has strangely refused to call this a ``national disaster’’ thereby shaking off claims for greater and maximum relief which should have been the natural step to take given the magnitude of the disaster.Except for routine allocation and sundry appeals made to the people to stand by those affected in the cyclone, the Prime Minister has not yet made any announcement which could be held at par with the scale of the tragedy.