Nagapattinam and Pudukottai locals stage protest, say govt officials neither visited affected places nor provided assistance to them
Normal life remained paralysed as the death toll mounted to 46 in the Gaja-hit districts of Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
Road rokos were staged in several places in the cyclone hit Nagapattinam and Pudukottai districts, alleging that the government officials neither visited their locality nor provide any assistance to them. Two days after the cyclone wreaked havoc in Nagapattinam, Pudukottai, Thanjavur and Thiruvarur districts, over 60,000 personnel from various government departments and volunteers along with national disaster response force were engaged in removing the lakhs of uprooted trees and electricity poles to enable free movement of the vehicle take relief materials to all the affected areas.
Vedaranyam, in Nagapattinam district, where the cyclone made landfall, suffered maximum damages. "All the thirty-six panchayats in Vedaranyam were affected by the cyclone. Except for a few concrete houses, all the houses with thatched roof and tiles were fully or partially damaged in the gusty winds on early hours of Friday. There is no power supply since Thursday afternoon," K Saravanan of Karuppanpulam at Vedaranyam said.
Tamil Nadu All Farmers Associations Coordination Committee coordinator PR Pandian said that over two lakhs coconut trees were uprooted in Pudukottai and Thanjavur districts affecting the livelihood of the farmers. "Besides, plantains, jackfruit trees and paddy crops were destroyed in the gusty winds accompanied with heavy rains," he said.
Karupasamy, a farmer said that 180 out of the 200 coconut trees in his land was uprooted in the storm. "All are 15-year-old trees. We started getting returns from the trees only five years ago. Now everything has been destroyed in the cyclone," he said, urging the state government to compensate the farmers for the losses they suffered.
Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said about 70 livestock and several goats, poultry and deer have also died due to the cyclone.
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