Friends of the Earth Finland

Oras Tynkkynen:
Orissa
cyclone
A natural phenomenon or
a sign of things to come?

Preface
This report tries to outline the events that took place when the two infamous cyclones hit Orissa in late 1999. Different estimates of the extent of devastation caused to people, nature and society are given. Considerable attention is devoted to analysing if and how the cyclones were linked to local and global environmental destruction.

The report is based on several printed and electronic sources, meetings with relief workers, officials and researchers as well as first-hand observations in different parts of Orissa in early March 2000. Many of the quantified estimates given may be little more than best guesses madesoon after the cyclones by unofficial sources, so they should be taken with a pinch of salt. It will take numerous studies and many more months if not years before the full extent of devastation is revealed. Estimates of cyclone-related costs are given inIndian rupees; at the time of writing this, one rupee was equal to 0.023 US dollars. Billion is used for thousand million (1,000,000,000).

Many of the printed sources are mimeo, i.e. papers not publicly available. However, copies of them can be made available on request. This report is available on the Internet at http://www.oras.net/writings.html.

I hope this short report manages to shed some light on what happened in Orissa in those fateful days in late 1999 and the potential significance of these events to humanity. All comments and questions are welcome and can be sent to the address given below.

I would like to thank Lokayan (New Delhi, India) and Service Centre for Development Cooperation (Helsinki, Finland) for making this report possible.

16th of April 2000
New Delhi, India

Oras Tynkkynen
climate campaigner
Friends of the Earth Finland

Rautatienkatu 14 A 4
33100 Tampere
FINLAND
tel. +358-3-212 7568
mobile +358-40-588 2594
fax +358-3-212 7257
e-mail oras@oras.net
URL http://www.oras.net

What happened
Cyclone is the name used for strong tropical storms in the Indian Ocean and parts of the South Pacific. They are called typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and hurricanesin the Caribbean and Southeast of the USA. A fully developed cyclone is 150–800 km across and 10–17 km high. It spirals around a centre with wind speeds of 160 km per hour or more. A cyclone may travel 300–500 km in a day and often brings large amounts of rainfall with it. When the storm approaches the coast, the sea level rises creating what is called a storm surge.

Contrary to common knowledge, there were actually two devastating cyclones in late 1999 in India. The first hit the coastal states of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal near the Bay of Bengal on October 18 and 19. With wind speeds of around200 km/h and large tidal waves, it killed around 500 and affected two million people.

A second and far more devastating cyclone 05B (dubbed the super cyclone) struck the East Coast at 3 AM on October 29 (“Black Friday”). The cyclone with sustained wind speeds exceeding 260 km/h and measuring more than seven on the Beaufort Scale tore across 200 kilometres of the coast. At times, the wind speeds reached an astonishing 310 km/h.

The cyclone hit first the area between Ersama and Balikuda. It stalled for three hours in a triangle formed by Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and Paradeep, continued to Cuttack and stalled again, this time in Kapilas in the late evening. From Kapilas it travelled to Anandpur, retreated to Jajpur and finally dissipated into the sea at Balasore after Bhadrak. The impact was felt in Orissa and West Bengal. The most severely affected districts (housing eleven million people) were Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur and Kendrapara. The districts of Khurda, Puri, Nayagarh, Gajapati, Keonjhar, Mayurbhang and Dhenkanal (with seven million people) were partially affected with 30–50% damage. The cyclone lasted for nearly two days.

The cyclones affected approximately 15 million people and damaged three million homes (half of which were destroyed). Estimating that an average of five family members lives in each house, approximately 7.5 million people were made homeless. 2.3 million children were affected. The official number of orphans is 1,500.

The damage caused was threefold: physical impact by strong winds; resulting storm surge and flash floods; and saline inundation. The districts of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur and Puri suffered from a five-metre tide that penetrated 26 kilometres inland. Manyaccounts talk of storm surges as high as 7.5–10 metres.It is generally considered that the cyclones were the worst natural catastrophe ever to hit Orissa and one of the worst in the whole of India.

The toll on people and the environment
The super cyclone in Orissa had a very heavy impact. No one was completely saved in the coastal districts – both rich and poor people saw their relatives dyingand property being destroyed. Some people say that coastal Orissa was set back in development by several decades. Others speaking on a more optimistic note point out that as everything old was devastated, there are good opportunities starting afresh and developing the state.

Estimates of the number of casualties vary wildly. The official estimate given by the Natural Disaster Management (NDM) Control Room at the Indian Ministry of Agriculture gave a death toll of 9,803 people at the end of November. Of these, 8,119 victims were in the worst affected Jagatsinghpur district alone. Another 3,312 people were estimated to be injured.

However, many people argue that official figures underestimate the human toll. Alternative, non-official estimates abound; one figure quoted is 20,000, another 25,000 and some of the estimates are even in the range of 50,000–200,000. Larger estimates are supported by the fact that 18 bodies were recovered even as late as in March 2000.

Those who managed to survive the immediate impact of cyclones have to face the aftermath. Growing food insecurity and reduced purchasing power has created room for malnutrition and anemia. Contamination of water spreads water-borne diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery with a potential for cholera and hepatitis outbreaks. Nearly 80,000 cases of diarrhea including 70 deaths were reported at the end of November. Similarly, there is an increased potential for outbreaks of vector-borne diseases. Post-traumatic stress syndrome and other mental problems created by the shock of losing family members are also a significant health issue.

In the longer run additional health problems may be created by the changes in local climate. The cyclones uprooted practically all the tree cover in the immediate vicinity of the coast and caused much damage to trees tens of kilometres inland. As trees both provide shade andhelp to create a cooler microclimate, the loss of tree cover is likely to result in a rise in temperatures. It is claimed that Bhubaneshwar is already several degrees hotter than before the cyclones. Orissa has naturally a very hot climate and as many as 700–800 people died in the heat wave in 1998. Even adding a few degrees to this may have a significant impact.

Where natural mangrove forests still existed, much of them remained intact. However, plantations of casurina, cashew, mango, banana, papaya and many other tree varieties were either badly affected or totally wiped out. 80% of coconut trees are estimated to be uprooted and even the remaining fifth suffered damage to the crown or trunk of the tree. In the worst hit areas in the Jagatsinghpur district the only trees left standing were coconut palms and even many of them were in bad shape. Massive banyan trees were uprooted around Bhubaneshwar and lesser damage to vegetation continued further inland. An unofficial estimate sets the damage to horticulture and orchards at a staggering 200 billion rupees.

Biodiversity in the coastal area was also badly affected. The loss of nesting sites for the endangered Olive Ridley turtle seem likely. Vast areas of Nandankanan Zoological Park which is home to India’s only wild white tigers were also flooded.

Social and economic consequences
As coastal Orissa is predominantly agrarian, the vast damage to agriculture has a large impact on household incomes and food security. One estimate for the loss in rice crops isaround two million tonnes or 10 billion rupees and for all other crops (sugar cane, jute etc.) additional two billion rupees.Another estimate for total crop loss is even more, 17.5 billion rupees. 17,000 square kilometres of cropland was affected and the crop loss in affected areas was 90–100%. Waterlogging and the salinity remaining in the ground have effectively prevented people from replanting thus losing another crop. A new crop can be planted only after the first monsoon has wiped away most of the salt.

More than 400,000 livestock animals perished according to the official estimates, but some accounts talk of as many as 500,000 animals or 90% of the livestock in the affected area. This has harmed significantly household economy, agriculture (lack of fertiliser and draught power) and fuel situation (loss of cow dung for cooking). Poultry farming suffered a loss of around 400 million rupees due to destruction of birds, hatcheries, feed mills and sheds.

“What is there to mourn
about lost cattle?”

You can see from their faces that these women have been through a lot. As they sit on the mud floor of a temporary shelter in Ersama, they recount calmly what happened on that fateful Black Friday.

Sita Beura (60) tells that it was drizzling when it all started. There had been a cyclone warning, but people were only expecting strong winds as with earlier cyclones – not the devastating flood several metres in height. Beura survived by clinging to a tree. She says that she would be dead by now if it were not for the help of relief organisations.

A woman of 65 with sad eyes and beautifully black hair – the secret is the ghee she applies regularly, she confides – tells that she lost most of her family in the cyclone. They used to keep as many as 80 cattle, but now all the animals are gone. However, that is insignificant compared with the human tragedy: “What is there to mourn about lost cattle when so many people have lost their lives?”

Statistics are dumb when it comes to human suffering. No figure can express what it feels like to see your loved ones die. The survivors are left with innumerable sad stories to tell, constantly haunted by ghoulish images.

Fishermen lost 5,000 boats and 10,000 nets according to unofficial estimates. The loss of boats may amount to around 540 million rupees. As many as 15,000 marine fishermen families have been estimated to lose their source of livelihood and another 25,000 families dependent on inland fisheries have been affected. More than 15,000 ponds have been affected by salt-water intrusion and contamination. One estimate of the financial loss to animal husbandry and pisciculture combined is five billion rupees.

Of the 102,000 tube wells in the affected districts, 39,985 were damaged. All electrical water pumps in the five most affected districts are non-functional.

Buildings made of traditional materials were worst affected by the combination of high wind speeds, storm surge and inundation. This appliedespecially to private houses, 75% of which are built entirely from mud and thatch, but also schools, health-care facilities and other community buildings were damaged. On the other hand, brick and mortar buildings got away with little damage. In the seven worst affected districts, over 70% of the shelters were destroyed, including 10–15% of houses with non-thatch roofs.  In the other seven affected districts, 40–50% of shelters were destroyed and 10–15% damaged.

According to official estimates 11,000 schools were either destroyed or damaged significantly, but unofficial estimates place the number of damaged schools at 15,000. Furniture, textbooks and stationery were also lost. The impact on artisans and services is estimated to total two billion rupees. This includes the loss of tools and work sheds. According to the local chambers of commerce, the total loss to industry, both big and small, would be five billion rupees.

Telephone lines were cut off and 410 telephone exchanges destroyedwith a cost of around 500 million rupees.Total damage to the power grid is approximately 330 million rupees. Television and radio transmission towers were wrecked and the damage in Paradeep port will cost around 800 million rupees. Railway lines and roads were not saved either.Additional problems were caused by looting and even food riots a couple of days after the cyclones.

Table 1: Some estimates of economic costs

Damage	Cost in Indian rupees	
Total crop loss	12,000,000,000–17,500,000,000	
Animal husbandry and pisciculture	5,000,000,000	
Paradeep port	800,000,000	
Communication infrastructure	500,000,000	
Power grid	330,000,000	

Estimating the total cost of the cyclones is very difficult. Meeting the immediate food, clothing, health and shelter needs of the people is estimated to require 70 billion rupees, equivalent to four times the annual plan expenditure of the Orissa state.It is likely that the total costs may run into tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of rupees.

Cyclones: acts of God or acts of man?
Cyclones are nothing new in the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh is almost routinely hit with forceful storms, often with fatal results: the storm surges in 1971 and 1991 killed 500,000 and 150,000 people respectively. According to the National Cyclone Review Committee, 147 damaging cyclones crossed the eastern coast of India in 1897–1970 hitting the coasts in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The committee found that almost 40% of the total damage caused by cyclones came from storm surges, which strike the hardest at the low-lying areas of coastal states. The hurricane winds associated with cyclones accounted for the other 60%.

What makes the second 1999 cyclone stand out from its predecessors is its sheer ferocity. The winds were exceptionally fierce blowing at 260 km/h and occasionally even around 300 km/hour. The only other recent case with wind speeds more than 250 km/hin the region was the 1977 cyclone in Andhra Pradesh. Usually cyclones die out soon after they have reached the land, but this time the cyclone survived for more than a day over the land. The subsequent storm surge was much higher than usually and the cyclone penetrated further inland than ever before.

There is a general agreement that cyclone devastation was worsened significantly by deforestation on the coast. Mangroves have been lost especially since 1960s. Before the early 1950s, there were hardly any people living on the coast. Resettling Bangladeshi refugees and industrialisation around Paradeep gave birth to settlements and large portions of the forests were opened for exploitation. It is claimed that corruption was heavily involved in the process. Once the destruction started, ordinary people soon joined in. Trees werecut down and sold as firewood or forests were converted into rice paddies, prawn farms and paan cultivation. Satellite pictures show that 2.5 square kilometres of mangroves were lost in the 70s every year.

Previously forests had formed a five-kilometre wide buffer zone against strong winds and flash floods. Without the protection of forests, the second cyclone travelled as much as 100 kilometres inland. The lack of protective forest cover also made it possible for the floods to inundate large areas and cause so much destruction. As forests have been lost, each consecutive cyclone has penetrated further inland.

An area near Paradeep where the forests are intact was largely saved from the ravage caused by the 1999 cyclones. Already earlier during the 1971 cyclone villages with buffer forests suffered precious little, but those that had lost the forest cover felt a deep impact. Likewisea tidal wave cost thousands of lives in 1991 in Sunderbans, Bangladesh while a similar tidal wave in 1960 did no harm to the villages that were at that time protected by mangrove forests.

Local government officials claim that an attempt will be made to reforest the coast. However, many people seem to question the seriousness of the officials and doubt that anything will really happen. If they are right and reforestation efforts fail or deforestation is allowed to continue, the effect of future cyclones is likely to be even worse.

Another factor worsening the storm surge and floods may be siltation. Almost all major rivers in both India and Bangladesh, including Ganges, Yamuna and Brahmaputra, flow to the Bay of Bengal. The rivers carry vast amounts of silt created by deforestation and erosion. When the silt is deposited in the Bay, the areas around deltas become shallower. This creates ideal conditions for high tidal waves and storm surges that were an important factor in the devastation in Orissa. Infrastructure development may have prevented seawater from receding thus aggravating floods.

Many people also claim that the recent cyclones were affected or even caused by global warming. It is very difficult if not impossible to establish conclusively the connection between any individual weather event and global warming. However, there is considerable reason to believe that climate change had an impact on the cyclones.

A statistical analysis of 98 years of data (1891–1988) has revealed that the present century global warming is associated with an increasing frequency of pre- and post-monsoon cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. On the other hand during the summer monsoon, cyclones have become less frequent.Arttabandhu Mishra from Sambalpur University has compiled a list of cyclones, powerful storms and storm surges in the bay area. According to him, storms have become more frequent especially during the past four decades.

What can be established with a reasonable level of certainty is that the world’s climate is changing because of anthropogenic emissions. It is very likely that climate change is already having an effect on local weather patterns across the world. If we cannot prove a connection between a particular local weather phenomenon and climate change, it may be appropriate to ask conversely whether in fact any weather event can be saved from the impact of global warming in today’s greenhouse climate.

It should also be remembered that an increase in the frequency and force of extreme weather events (such as cyclones) fits with many predictions on what climate will be like due to global warming. A computer simulation suggests that if tropical sea surfaces warm by a little more than 2°C, the strongest hurricanes will have wind speeds of 5–12% higher than earlier – i.e. the worst tropical storms will get even worse.

There is some data to support the claim that a move towards weather extremes is already taking place in the Bay of Bengal. Maximum summer temperatures in Orissa have shown a rise since the 50s. At the same time winter and night temperatures have fallen. Another observed change is that the buffer zone between the warmer surface seawater and colder water on the bottom in the Bay of Bengal has been lost. This might indicate that even small changes in temperature affect the weather in the area very fast.

Conclusions
The two cyclones that hit Orissa in late 1999 had a devastating impact. With wind speeds reaching 300 km/h and storm surges of several metres, they damaged three million homes and key infrastructure, killed around 10,000 people, made 7.5 million people homeless and affected another 15 million people. Most of the tree cover on the coast and closer to half a million livestock were lost. Economic costs may run into hundreds of billions of rupees (billions of US dollars). It was the worst “natural” catastrophe in the history of Orissa and one of the worst in India.Rebuilding the state will take years if not decades.

The devastation caused by the cyclones was significantly worsened by several manmade factors. The loss of protective mangrove buffer forests on the coast made it possible for both the cyclones and following storm surges to travel deep inland. Infrastructure development and siltation on the coast may have been other aggravating factors.

While uncertainties abound, there are fairly good reasons to believe that global warming affected the cyclones. According to statistics, warming has increased the frequency of pre- and post-monsoon cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. It can be asked whether any weather event can be saved from a human influence in a changing climate. Furthermore, increasing frequency and force of extreme weatherevents fits many predictions on greenhouse climate.

Key findings:
•	The cyclones affected 15 million and killed 10,000 people.
•	The devastation was aggravated significantly by the loss of protective forest cover on the coastline – i.e. the destruction was largely manmade.
•	While a link between a given weather event and global warming cannot be established conclusively, evidence suggests that climate change contributed to the cyclones.