Pounded Patharghata now a valley of death

Patharghata upazila was having a good year. The shrimp and hilsha harvest for its largely fishing community was unusually large this year. Located on the southern-most tip on the coastlines of Barguna, its two lakh strong population were wedged between the Bay of Bengal, and the rivers Baleshwar and Bishkhali.
When Cyclone Sidr made its way up Barguna on Thursday night, it erased all memories of Patharghata's past fortunes, unleashing its fury to leave a macabre landscape in its wake.
The official death count for the upazila, until Saturday, was 307. But even a cursory examination on the ground, witness reports, and simply from the number of mass graves, the death toll is well over 3,000. Cut off from the rest of the country, the upazila was accessible only by air or a long-route by the sea. The approach road was blocked by fallen trees and power-lines, preventing any relief vehicle from entering within a 40-kilometre area.
The corpses were found wrapped in paddy sheaves on rice fields, emanating heavy stench of rotting flesh. Most of the bodies were found one or two kilometres from where their homes had been. Some bodies lay tangled on tree branches, some were lining the shore, some unidentified were just left to rot.
Sidr rose out of the southern-most village of Patharghata -- Padma. First, it took out a five-kilometre stretch of homes that had been built on the slope of a long mud-baked embankment lining the border of the village. In its wake, a 20-feet tidal surge wiped out the entire community. The tide swept the houses and most of its inhabitants, carrying them two to three kilometres inland. Most of the corpses were found three, sometimes four villages away.
In one small pocket, where a 100-metre stretch of the embankment was damaged by a previous flood, the tidal surge wreaked its greatest havoc.
The tide broke through the embankment and channelled all of its awesome power through that 100-metre gap razing all of at least 50 homes in one clean sweep.
The power of the deadly tidal surge is evident by the vanishing of the big mosque building, made of bricks and concrete, which used to occupy a section of that small pocket.
"We were about to run to the shelter my mother, my wife, two nephews, and I when we saw the great big wave. I looked up and up and there was no end to it. It swept us up and I grabbed the first tree trunk that I could find," said Delwar, one of the rare survivors from the ill-fated 50 homes. The rest of his family died. At least 135 corpses from that small pocket of Padma village were found till Saturday morning.
Similar ghastly stories were found in three other villages along the Baleshwar river, in Rohita, Tangra, and Gouharpur. With at least 400 corpses from Padma village alone, the death toll was rising and no one knew or dared to imagine what it was.
In Charduani and Kathaltali union similar stories were told and retold in almost an endless cycle.
The other side of Patharghata is lined by the Bishkhali river. Around 12 kilometres along the southern tip is Kakchira Maajher Char, a small sandbar island visible from the mainland with a population of around 4,000. Like so many other chars in the area, it had no cyclone shelter. There was no warning. On Saturday, it was almost impossible to walk even five metres without seeing a corpse. A mass grave was marked by a dirty white cloth tied to a lone stick. No one wanted to talk. The air was too heavy with the stench of dead bodies, made heavier with the spine-chilling shrieks and wails of its inhabitants.
A man shaking with rage said, "What have you come to see. There is nothing to see here." Asked how many people died, he sank into a shell, scratching restlessly into the white sand he said, "No less than 80 percent." No relief had reached the char yet.
Further south-west on the mainland in Patharghata, lies Haringhata, a heavily forested area wedged on the confluence of three rivers and the bay. It is accessible only through the sea and was home to around 2,500 to 5,000 shutki (dried fish) farmers who migrate there for a few months a year from Khulna and surrounding areas. It was the peak season. No one can access the area because a thick shroud of fallen trees has blocked all entrance points. Only the corpses lining the shore offer a grim glimpse of the devastation inside.
Two survivors made it out of the remote area by swimming along the coastline to Patharghata. One of them, bleeding from several wounds from a wild-boar attack, could not speak and was taken to a hospital. Another, a shutki farmer named Limon, described the gory details of what had been Haringhata's hours of horror.
"We knew there would be trouble when we saw the black clouds. Then the storm came and then the tidal wave," he said. "All were washed away," Limon said with a vacant look that always seemed to be looking out to the horizon.
"No one can be alive in there. I saw hundreds of bodies tangled on tree branches, hanging by their feet or wrapped around the tree trunks…They were lucky. I saw so many who were being eaten by the boars," Limon said.
Thousands of people are injured and thousands of families are homeless, cooking and sleeping under the open sky. Almost all of them had not eaten since Thursday night. Some made do with the core of banana trees.
The chief adviser and the army chief flew in to Patharghata municipality on Friday for brief visits. None of the relief had made its way to the worst affected areas. Medical help is a far cry.
One single, powerful symbol of hope came in the form of a woman, who stood by a wooden pillar on the slope of the embankment where her home used to be. Looking into the calm blue waters of the Bay of Bengal, she said, "This pillar is from my home. It won't take long before it's in my home again."