NCERT Book Class 9 English (Moments) Chapter 6 Weathering the Storm in Ersama

6. Weathering the Storm in Ersama

The cyclone that hit Orissa in October 1999
killed thousands of people and devastated
hundreds of villages. For two dreadful nights
Prashant, a young man, was marooned on the
roof of a house. On the third day he decided to
go to his village. Did he find his family?

ON 27 October 1999, seven years after his mother’s death,
Prashant had gone to the block headquarters of Ersama, a small
town in coastal Orissa, some eighteen kilometres from his village,
to spend the day with a friend. In the evening, a dark and
menacing storm quickly gathered. Winds beat against the houses
with a speed and fury that Prashant had never witnessed before.
Heavy and incessant rain filled the darkness, ancient trees were