A report on the impacts of cyclone Yaas over a fish landing centre vulnerable to cyclonic storms and natural hazards – Talsari, Northern Odisha

ABSTRACT

The present work reports the actual ground conditions prevalent at a fish landing centre in Northern Odisha, namely, Talsari in the aftermath of the cyclone “Yaas”, which made a landfall on May 26th, 2021. Local surveys showed the extensive damages to the fishing and tourism infrastructures, denoting huge setbacks to the pursuance of sustainable fishing practices. The combined stress of the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic as well as the successive damages to livelihoods due to the cyclones Amphan and Yaas in 2020 and 2021 respectively, has increased the risk and vulnerability of Balasore to natural hazards by multiple folds. The same requires multi-agency intervention and detailed analyses of local socio-technical factors to avoid futuristic losses.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyclone
• Yaas
• Balasore
• Odisha
• vulnerability

Acknowledgements

The authors are highly thankful for the marine fishers at the fish landing centre at Talsari, who kindly consented to telephonic interviews and shared their observations at ground level during and in the aftermath of the cyclone “Yaas”. The authors are grateful to Mr. Bijoy Behera for his reliable ground-truthing, representation of the local fisher’s concerns and for sharing the photos and videos of the impacts of the cyclone at Talsari.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

• Sudip Kumar Kundu – ground data, information and photographs collection, compilation of the data from secondary sources, survey of literature, drafted the paper

• Harini Santhanam – manuscript writing, creation of figures and tables, finalising the draft, communication