MAKESHIFT HOME: A woman and her children sleep on a boat at Salmora village in Majuli after her house was destroyed in floods. Picture by UB Photos

Salmora (Majuli), July 5: For the residents of Salmora, the yearly turbulence of the Red River is no longer bearable.

A final decision has been reached. What they want is permanency — a new location away from the “merciless” Brahmaputra to set up their houses. And this is what they sought with folded hands when a team of relief workers visited their flood-demolished village yesterday.

What is at stake is the centuries-old famed pottery industry of Majuli, the only industry on this fresh water island, one of the largest in the world. The flood this time has taken away about 200 square metres of the village rendering 30 families homeless and affecting more or less all the 575 families who are involved in pottery industry. Also gone with the river this time are the instrument and raw materials (clay) that are used for making pots.

Tipeswar Bora, an elderly villager, said he had rebuilt his house six times in the last two decades. His original home is now in the middle of the river and there is no place left in the village to set up a new home.

“Now only about a square km of the land is left in the village today. We have no option left but to shift somewhere else, far away from this merciless river. I have lost everything this time. My tools and the clay are now buried under several metres of sand which came along with floodwaters,” Bora told this correspondent who accompanied a group of relief workers from mainland Jorhat.

A woman at Salmora village arranges clay pots. Picture by UB Photos

Archaeologists say the pottery industry in Majuli has been a missing link between Mohenjodaro and Harappan civilisations during which period the pottery industry flourished.

Pots are made from beaten clay and burnt in driftwood-fired kilns while the women shape the pots. The finished products are ferried up and downstream on country boats as far as Sadiya and Dhubri. This year though, the river had not only swept away their dwellings of the villagers but has buried the entire village under sand which came along with floodwaters.

“Floodwaters have receded in the last couple of days but everything we had is buried under sand,” said Chandra Kalita, another elderly villager.

Although a few villagers have been returning to what is left of their dwellings after the deluge, most of them are staying at temporary dwellings on the embankment, depending totally on the relief materials from the authorities.

The Majuli administration, however, blame the villagers for their misery. “The continuous digging by the villagers on the bank of the river to find the special clay used in making pots have make the embankment weak resulting in massive erosion,” a sub-divisional administration official said.

Rampant erosion by the Brahmaputra has reduced Majuli to less than 50 per cent of its habitable land in the past few decades. Official sources said over the last six decades, the habitable land of the island has decreased from 1,226 square km to 576 square km because of unabated erosion and Salmora is one of the worst affected areas. Last year, the sub-divisional administration banned digging on the river bank forcing the villagers to sail across the river to Dikhowmukh in Sivasagar district to get the particular clay.

“We have to pay Rs 1,000 for a boat-full of clay which we bring from Dikhowmukh and stock up in the village. Floodwaters have swept away all our stocks of clay this time. We simply have no energy left in us to continue our struggle with the river,” said Konbap Hazarika, a village youth.

Altogether 547 animals, including 11 rhinos, have died in the recent floods at Kaziranga National Park. Official figures released today said that this figure is over and above the three rhinos which were killed by poachers. A Kaziranga official said the figure would be much more as large portions of the park were still under water.