News photo of the lion gate in Puri. The lion, as well as the deity of Jaya (of Jaya and Vijaya) standing at the gate, were broken.
Madhavananda das: When the storm hit all electricity, water, internet, phones, trains, as well as all land vehicles going in and out of Puri completely stopped. It was a bit of a drama. At one point we actually weren’t sure if we were going to survive or not. The storm ripped off (note: more like exploded, destroyed), the upstairs front aluminum window frame/wall of our ashram. Which let inside the 250 kmh winds and torrential rains. It was, um, … a little exciting. We were inspired to start chanting loudly.
Puri looks like it was bombed. There is mass destruction everywhere. The first newspaper we saw (yesterday) estimated the number of deaths in Puri (up to that time) as 39 persons. We had massive amounts of water came in all of the rooms upstairs (wind mainly in the outer room). Practically everything got soaked. The challenge afterwards was the no electricity, water, internet, phone, trains and communication. It’s a long drama. Much of our ashram is gone, but we came out much better than tens of thousands of the wonderful residents of Jagannath Puri.
Please join us in praying for their well-being.
The 12th-century Jagannath temple, the town’s most famous landmark, has also suffered, with only a few pilgrims visiting the shrine. Water crisis had affected the functioning of the temple, though mahaprasad is being cooked as usual. “We are using water from two wells to cook the mahaprasad. But we are not getting enough water for our other needs,” said a temple sevayat.
Thousands of power workers and public health engineering organization staff are working almost around the clock to normalize power and water supply in the town, but the task is too large to be achieved in a few days.