Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Apr 06: It seems as if there is a mad rush for filling all the tsunami inundated land with earth. Right from Attam Pahar to Garacharma to Chouldari, everywhere one can see several thousand cubic meters of earth is being brought by trucks and dumped in tsunami inundated land.
One wonders from where contractors are getting such huge quantity of earth and who is giving permission to them for cutting of such huge volume of earth.
Nearly a year back people of Tylerabad had protested against illegal extraction of earth from their area, which somewhere indicates that something is wrong in this entire episode of illegal earth cutting.
Public demand that the present Deputy Commissioner, who is known for his field visits, must conduct a surprise visit to all the tsunami inundated land and see that how people are filling earth in their plots for commercial use.
Experts believe that in a place like Andaman, which falls in Zone V of seismic map, constructing multi-storey buildings could be disastrous, as during earthquake, loose earth mixed with wet soil within and turns into mud, which can result in a disaster during earthquake. Hence there must be a check on illegal extraction and filling of earth at various areas of South Andaman.
Many believe that more than earth filling, earth cutting is more disastrous for these Islands as in large number of cases the earth is extracted illegally, leveling hilly land, which may indirectly destroy local ecology.
In recent days there has been sharp increase in cases of spotting venomous snakes in public places, perhaps illegal earth extraction and deforestation for such extraction, is the main reason for this.
