*Heavy rains in agriculture field of Debra Ho, Saranda forest, full of iron, damage paddy crops.Picture courtesy Prabhat Khabar
Ho tribals are suffering from untold miseries of rains in the Saranda forest area of Jharkhand. Their paddy fields were flooded with water carrying ‘red particles’.”
“Our paddy crops are on the verge of collapse”, cribs Sukra Ho, from Saranda, a dense forest in the hilly belt of West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
This belt of Ho tribe used to be the private hunting reserve of the royal family of Saraikela headed by the Singh Deo family. The forest covers an area of 820 km. Literally, Saranda (Serengda) means water is from rock full of iron ores. This makes the rain waters look red.
Due to continuous rains during the past three days, several rain-fed rivers and drains such as Karo and Koena were flowing above the danger level. The red water gushing out of hills into the paddy fields was learnt to have damaged a number of roads and bridges.
Worse, apart from causing a flood-like scene, the red water -full of iron -had threatened paddy crops. The areas in Saranda that were badly affected were villages adjoining Danguwaposi Railway station, Badajamda football ground, and market.“We did not sleep last night, fearing the water will flood our hut”, cribs Jumna Ho, a school teacher at Danguwaposi.
The bridge near Marangponga-Hatnaburu village was washed away. The link between almost a dozen villages. Such as Usruiya, Kolayburu, Kudlibad, Kurdish, Baliba and Thalakabad was broken due to heavy rains flooding and damaging roads and bridges, reports reaching Ranchi claimed.