‘We’ve to start afresh’: Puri begins to pick up the pieces after Cyclone Fani

PURI/BHUBANESWAR: A group of children playing cricket in the backdrop of a fallen high-mast lighting pole on the Puri beach and street vendors trying to scavenge for anything that survived the nearly 200kmph storm during Cyclone Fani are snapshots that sum up the situation here as the town tries to limp back to normalcy.
Glass panels of hotel rooms along the beach look like they have been bombed. Heaps of sand cover the black-top road parallel to the beach, one of Puri's most active spots. But the destruction has failed to subdue human spirit and efforts are already under way by locals, volunteers and civic staff to get the town up and running.
A woman sitting in front of her damaged house in Puri.
"The cyclone was a nightmare. We never expected it to be so bad. But it is Lord Jagannath's land. Things will be fine with his blessings. Why bother thinking of what we have lost? We have to start afresh," said a street vendor busy collecting whatever useful was left of his stall which earlier sold decorative items.
But even though it may take months to restore infrastructure, tourists have started arriving. "Since I had planned to come, I did not cancel it. We drove from Balasore," said student Sangram Singh.
In Bhubaneswar, the Bhumunicipal corporation is faced with the uphill task of clearing the debris from the roads with its nearly 700 sanitary workers having left for their native villages after Fani barrelled through coastal Odisha, blowing away thatched houses and flattening towns and villages.
As a result, the restoration work is going on at a snail's pace in the city. Residents said tonnes of green waste lie strewn across the city. Meanwhile, residents of several localities have taken up the cudgels to clean their respective areas themselves.