“It is not sure whether we will be alive until a reply comes for this letter. We the people of Chellanam are caught in between COVID-19 and sea erosion. You are my last hope.” These are words of Edgar Sebastian, a Class 10 student hailing from Chellanam, a coastal village in Kerala, who recently wrote a moving letter to President Ram Nath Kovind.
For the past week, the coastal hamlet which is grappling with COVID-19 after hundreds of people contracted the disease through local transmission, is facing the fury of the sea. Hundreds of homes were flooded and many houses were destroyed in the severe sea erosion the locality witnessed.
Edgar hails from one of the hundreds of affected families. This 15-year-old’s spirit was dampened seeing the state of affairs and he wrote this letter to President Ram Nath Kovind on July 25, as his last resort to fix things.
Edgar's house in Chellanam
“My village Chellanam is hit by disasters over and over, but there is no one to help us. I’m writing this letter due to this fear. Since the time I can remember, twice every year, my parents used to run away from our house taking me and my brother. Due to the sea erosion, during summer and monsoon, water will gush into my house. It is to escape from that we run away. This year also since July 16 sea erosion has been there. As usual we prepared to go to our relative’s house, but we could not due to the COVID-19 transmission in our region,” Edgar wrote.
In the letter, Edgar said how he has also been part of multiple protests including hunger strikes, along with his father and others in the region, demanding the construction of a sea wall to protect the families on the coast.
“But no one came to our aid. The monstrous waves entered almost all the houses in Chellanam, close to 400 houses have been damaged and six houses have been totally destroyed. Along with the things in the houses, my friends and I have also lost our school textbooks. Monsoon has only started in Kerala and there will be sea erosion again,” Edgar explained.
Letter
Urging the President to intervene in the issue, he wrote, “I have studied that Arabian Sea is one of India’s borders. I believe that you have the responsibility to protect the border. You are my last hope, and I humbly request you to intervene in the matter to construct a seawall and rescue us.”
Speaking to TNM, Edgar said that he wrote the letter to the President seeing the apathy of officials in not keeping their promise.
“When the Ockhi cyclone hit in 2017, there was severe sea erosion, like today. Back then, the officials said that within three months they will construct a Geotube seawall for us. But now it has been three years, and the works are yet to be completed,” he told TNM.
Though Edgar has not yet received a reply to his letter, he hopes that the President will notice it and intervene.
Watch sea erosion in Chellanam: