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Waves of Erosion

-  A Data Storytelling of the Satabhaya Villages  -
by Swadhin Ray
Odisha, India

“ Roots have weakened, trees have fallen. It is the end of the world, Satabhaya is a no man’s land now ”

Pabitra Kumar Sahoo, age 37, who used to stay in Satabhaya recalls by saying that around 1982, the shoreline was 1 - 1.5 km away from the temple but today it is just a few seconds away.

“ Sea made us, sea ruined us ”

Sudarshan Rout, age - 55, born in Govindpur, had 4 acres out of appx. 2000 acres village agricultural land. But today it is completely inside the sea now.

“ Gods went, the temple remains ”

Bhaskar Routray, age - 62, a retired local journalist further added, the story of Goddess Panchubarahi of Satabhaya dates back to the time when Bay of Bengal was called Kalinga Sagar.

“ Some were rich there, some were poor, in the new land, we all have become equal ”

An elderly villager, age 62, who faced multiple cyclones in his life in 1971, 1982, 1999 until today.

7 hamlets of Satabhaya: [from top] HabeliChintamanipur, Kaduanasi, Sanagahiramatha, Govindapur, Sahebnagar, Mohanpur and Paramanandapur.
Source: Odisha Remote Sensing Application Centre, Assembly Constituency Map.

Introduction to Satabhaya

Odisha’s coastline is spread across 6 coastal districts namely Ganjam, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Baleshwar. Due to numerous cyclonic episodes starting from 1971, approximately 31.02 km of coastline is eroded in Kendrapara alone making it the worst affected by sea erosion.

Satabhaya [sata: seven, bhaya: brothers], a group of seven hamlets in coastal Kendrapara has been hit hard by cyclones and resulting erosions. The cyclone of 1971, the Super cyclone of 1999 and many others until 2018, has affected it’s human life and property severely. More than 5000 people have lost their lives, remaining got displaced, washing away more than 600 homes, approximately 2400 acres of cropland got salinized due to sea water ingression, temples, schools got destroyed, livestock died and many other incidents occurred parallelly. The frequency and intensity of these storms depend on several climatic factors which have worsened since the 1971 Odisha cyclone and experts link this to coastal erosion with the sea's ingress into the land and the resultant rise in sea levels due to global warming.

An elderly villager, age 62
Recalled witnessing multiple cyclones in 1971, 1982, 1999, and said,

“  In 1999, I watched as the sea swallowed my birthplace. After that I left Satabhaya. ”

Satabhaya in 2007
Satabhaya in 2023
Source: Left: Priya Ranjan Sahu, Right: Self