History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c44.142

v2.c44.142

Katak is as much liable to floods and tidal waves as Balasore. It is recorded that after 1830 floods of a serious nature occurred at least twenty-two times :-1831, 1834, 1848, 1851, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1862, 1866, 1868, 1872, 1874, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1885, 1892, 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1900. The highest flood of which there is any record was that of July 1855 when the Mahānadī rose to an enormous height and the embankments were breached at more than 1365 places and 52 square miles of land were left waste for fear of inundations. The next great flood was that of 1872 when 1135 square miles in the Katak district and 1070 in the Puri district remained flooded out of which 600 were under water for a fortnight. Towards the close of the century the most serious floods were those of 1892 and 1896. In 1896 the great rivers Brāhmaṇī, Baitaraṇī as well as the Mahānadī rose to great height and for fifteen days the flood water remained on the fields destroying the crops. The most terrible cyclone was that of 1885. It burst upon the coast on the 22nd September 1885 at False Point and a wave, 22 ft. high at once submerged the village of Jambu and wiped it away. The storm was specially disastrous in the Jājpur and Kendrāpārā sub-divisions. In Jājpur alone 300 men lost their lives, 2447 villages were damaged and nearly 50,000 houses were destroyed. About 2973 cattle were killed. In the Kendrāpārā sub-division about 5,000 people were drowned, 10,000 cattle lost, 11 villages were completely swept away. The best rice-growing tracts in the Kanikā estate were converted into brackish wastes. The next important cyclone was that of 1890, when a tidal wave affected a considerable part of the Kujang estate. All standing crops were destroyed and the tanks and wells filled with brackish water.¹