E
Sreenivasan, an 80-year-old fisherman, stands near a granite memorial as he recalls the fury of the sea 21 years ago. On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck the Indian Ocean coast with a ferocious intensity, uprooting trees, smashing buildings, and sweeping away thousands of people. At the fisher hamlet in Arattupuzha at the southern end of Alappuzha district in Kerala, the tragedy claimed 29 lives. “They included three children from the same family,” he says, pointing to the memorial.
Soon after the disaster, a 14-kilometre-long fortress-like seawall came up in Arattupuzha. It was created with concrete tetrapods, huge boulders, sand bags, and coir geotextiles.
