Agony of losing homes to the giant waves along Uppada coast

Bondhi Trimurthulu and his wife Kondamma left their house facing the sea at Uppada village in Kakinada district with a heavy heart. The Cyclone Montha took away their deram house they built with their sweat and blood.

The high tide triggered by Cyclone Montha ate away half of their house before the sunrise on Tuesday.

Their neighbour, Jami Pydamma, abandoned her house last monsoon. Her two daughters, Sai and Bhavani, are pursuing their studies—one wants to be a nurse while the other wants to be a teacher. On Tuesday, Ms. Pydamma rushed to her house only to see it being engulfed by the giant waves. 

In Uppada panchayat, which was once abandoned by the handloom weavers, a majority of the fisherfolk families had a history of losing a house to the sea over the last two decades, owing to copastal erosion.

“Every boulder of our house, now swallowed by the sea, carried a piece of memory. Two decades ago, we bought the house. We raised our two daughters there. Our family is now living in a rented house. We cannot return to our house as it is destined to be eaten away by the sea anytime,” says Ms. Pydamma, who ekes out her livelihood by selling fish in the nearby villages. 

On Tuesday, a row of houses was swept away by the waves, leaving their occupants helpless in front of nature’s fury. The Uppada panchayat’s population is 14,680 (2011 Census) with 4,987 families as per the panchayat authorities. 

Since the release of Uppena (cyclone), a Telugu movie that was shot along the Uppada coast, nearly 250 houses have been washed away by the sea. Those houses were once part of the habitations of Jaggampeta, Sooradapeta, Mayapatnam, Kothapeta, Pallipeta, Subbampeta and Ameenabad. The places of worship of various faiths have also not been spared.

“We cannot go far from the sea as we depend on it for our livelihood. Many of our fellow fisherfolk who lost their houses are living in rented houses,” said Trimurthulu, who owns a traditional boat. According to the State Department of Survey, the Uppada coast had lost 1,360 acres of land since 2020 at the rate of 1.23 m per year.

The Uppada village had lost 126.58 acres while Subbampeta lost 129.48 acres to the sea erosion since 1980s as claimed by a study (2012) by Andhra Pradesh State Remote Sensing Agency and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (Kakinada).

In 2010, a 1,463-meter-long geotextile tube was set up along the Uppada coast to prevent coastal erosion. However, it could not withstand the waves by 2015.

Recently, the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR), Chennai, has proposed a seawall along the Uppada coast at a cost of ₹323 crore as an immediate solution to prevent coastal erosion. Upon a request by Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan, the NCCR experts have completed their technical investigation.

In a public meeting with the fisherfolk of Uppada coast in October, Mr. Pawan Kalyan sought 100 days to convince the Central government for the grant of ₹323 crore for the seawall project.