Uppada is a coastal village in the East Godavari district, around 18 km north of the Kakinada port in Andhra Pradesh. The village has faced ingress of seawater over the past few years. Half of the shoreline of the village has hardly any sandy beach left. High tidal surges hit against the partially damaged houses at the edge of the village coast as the basement of these houses are slowly getting eroded into the sea. Villagers claim that there are more than 100 such ‘ghost’ houses here, which were earlier inhabited but are now abandoned because of the damages.
“Now, around 100 such houses lie in compromised situations and can break away into the sea any day. In the last two decades, hundreds of houses including a village market, school, temple and a bus stand have gone into the sea due to cyclones and sea erosion,” said 40-year-old S. Prasad, a resident of Uppada where, he said, the total population is around 20,000.
Uppada is not alone in Andhra Pradesh when it comes to sea erosion. Around 237 km away towards the north in the Srikakulam district, Kalingapatam is known for harnessing a British era port and known for its tourist potential. The damage from sea erosion is quite evident here too.
According to the estimates by Chennai-based National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), an autonomous institute of the Union government, 30% of the coast in Andhra Pradesh is prone to sea erosion which includes around 290 kms of the coast of the state.
A man walks through Uppada beach in Andhra Pradesh, which has witnessed severe coastal erosion in the past few years. Photo: Manish Kumar/Mongabay
Several houses along the eastern Indian coast have been impacted by constant sea erosion, cyclones and other environmental factors. Those living there have abandoned these houses.
Some living in these vulnerable areas, close to the Bay of Bengal, voluntarily moved as the tidal waves hit their homes, while others were resettled by the government.
Inter-state migration from such coastal hotspots has also been reported from Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and some other states.
Experts say that a lack of a concrete resettlement policy for such internally displaced population are making things worse for these communities.
Uppada is a coastal village in the East Godavari district, around 18 km north of the Kakinada port in Andhra Pradesh. The village has faced ingress of seawater over the past few years. Half of the shoreline of the village has hardly any sandy beach left. High tidal surges hit against the partially damaged houses at the edge of the village coast as the basement of these houses are slowly getting eroded into the sea. Villagers claim that there are more than 100 such ‘ghost’ houses here, which were earlier inhabited but are now abandoned because of the damages.
“Now, around 100 such houses lie in compromised situations and can break away into the sea any day. In the last two decades, hundreds of houses including a village market, school, temple and a bus stand have gone into the sea due to cyclones and sea erosion,” said 40-year-old S. Prasad, a resident of Uppada where, he said, the total population is around 20,000.
N. Kishore, another resident of the village claimed that a large population of the village has resettled in other areas like Naikar colony, P. Lakshmi Colony, Vengageta colony. Extreme weather conditions, impacted livelihoods and triggered the displacement of people in the Uppada village where the majority of the households were engaged in the fishing trade.
“The whole village has suffered huge losses. Anyone can still see how several houses are almost set to go into the sea any day in the village,” said Kishore. He explained that the government in the last few years has added geotubes to reduce the damage to the village due to sea erosion which helped in checking the damages to the village lying along the coastal periphery to some extent. Geotubes are artificial structures packed together and placed on the coast to prevent sea ingress into the land.
Geographically, Uppada lies to the north of Kakinada port and in close vicinity of rivers like Pedda and Upputeru which drain into the Bay of Bengal. Experts have often linked presence of ports and sea mouths as triggering factors for increased sea erosion.
Uppada is not alone in Andhra Pradesh when it comes to sea erosion. Around 237 km away towards the north in the Srikakulam district, Kalingapatam is known for harnessing a British era port and known for its tourist potential. The damage from sea erosion is quite evident here too.
“Kalingapatnam was earlier 500 meters away from the sea but now it comes just before the coast and started eroding our roads, beaches and its nearby structures. There was a road here which used to extend up to 500 metres away from the beach. Not half of it has been destroyed by the ingress of seawater into the village,” Kal Ishwar, a fisherman from Kalingapatnam told Mongabay-India.
Vaspalli Suresh, another 62-year-old villager from Kalingapatnam said, “The area is now flooded. Our temple and crematorium have been engulfed by the sea. Several such structures went inside whereas such activities also hit the livelihood options for the local fisherman and also reduced the tourism potential of the site.”
In Andhra Pradesh, out of its 974-km-long coastal stretch, regions such as Eastern and Western Godavari, Krishna and Guntur, Visakhapatnam are prone to erosion whereas the region between Kakinada to Uppada has seen severe damages due to coastal erosion.
According to the estimates by Chennai-based National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), an autonomous institute of the Union government, 30% of the coast in Andhra Pradesh is prone to sea erosion which includes around 290 kms of the coast of the state.
Extreme weather triggered displacement
Several pockets of areas along the coastal districts of Odisha are witness to years of suffering of the coastal communities who were forced to migrate sometimes even overnight. In Satabhaya in Kendrapara district, seven villages slowly got into the sea and later the communities were resettled in Bagapatia.
Take the example of faster erosion in Udayakani in the Puri district of Odisha. This village during 1999 saw sudden tidal surge leading to large scale inundation of their areas, forcing them to migrate. Similar is the tale of nearby Chhenua village which was resettled twice.
Rabindra Nath Pradhan, resident of resettled Chhenua village, around two kms away from the sea coast now, told Mongabay-India that it was their own agricultural land once bought by their forefathers which helped them to resettle here as they did not get any land-related aid from the government.
“We came here in 2000. Around 40 households were there in the village. All the houses got smashed in 1999 due to the severe cyclonic storm. All of them moved into the land. All were able to survive as the cyclone came during the day, otherwise, we might not have come out safely,” Pradhan said.
Pradhan and other villages claimed that villagers of Chhenua and Udayakani had to take shelter temporarily close to the green belt along the coast with some help from the government before resettling to other areas after the construction of a few swelling units on their farmlands close to the beach.
Villagers of Udayakani and Chhenua claimed the Odisha government gave around Rs. 22,000 to each of the affected families then but no land as compensation.
Gobind Pradhan, 85, a resident of Udayakani told Mongabay-India that the cyclones hitting their areas, sea erosion and floods have often taken a toll on their farming activities too besides impacting the overall health of the affected villages.
“Due to extreme weather, the green belt between sea and the land has been destroyed. Many casuarina and mangrove forests are damaged and dried now. Due to regular flooding, we cannot grow many crops here while the salinity of water in our areas has increased leading to problems in drinking water availability,” Pradhan said.
Resettlement woes
However, despite government assistance, resettlement of coastal areas especially among fishermen communities have been a Herculean task for the government too. In the Southern Odisha district of Ganjam, close to the Odisha-Andhra border, Ramayapatnam has faced the worst wrath of sea erosion. Here around 10 villages are in dilapidated condition and look vulnerable in any extreme weather condition.
Here the government has constructed around 400 new houses in a nearby resettled colony for their safety but hardly five families have moved to those concrete houses provided with electricity, water and good roads.
Mohini is a resident of Ramayapatnam and often helps his family in the fishing trade. Most other women in the village do the same work. She told Mongabay-India, “Very few of us moved to the resettled colony as most of the villagers here are involved in fishing and hardly anyone wants to go there as it will distance themselves from the seashore where they get easy access to the sea despite understanding the associated risks.”
Experts claim that several of the resettlements in Odisha and many other coastal states suffer due to a lack of vision and policy documents. Ranjan Panda, Water and Climate Change expert from Odisha told Mongabay-India, “Majority of coastal states of India lack a clear cut policy for resettlement. This comes when the people who get displaced under such conditions are often poor and marginalised.”
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