Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday said that Sunday night’s supermoon was responsible for the rise in seawater levels which eventually damaged the state’s coastline, and not Cyclone Ockhi, IANS reported.
On Monday, a high tide had washed away beach beds and flooded restaurants on the coastline. Shacks in Ashwem, Morjim, Mandrem and Keri were hit, while 80% of the shacks in Pernem were damaged, the Shack Owners’ Welfare Society said. On Tuesday, Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte had said that the rise in sea water levels had caused damages to the tune of Rs 30 lakh in six areas.
“The reason for the seawater level rise is simple...it is because there was a supermoon that day,” Parrikar told journalists at a press conference at the state secretariat. “Many people did not realise this. Supermoon means the biggest tidal effect. So as it is, even if there was no cyclone, you would have had the tide and most of the tide would have entered the shacks.”
The chief minister further said there were currently no standard operating procedures in place to tackle such natural disasters. “Today we discussed it. I have asked the revenue minister [Khaunte] to work out the standard operating procedures. The biggest problem in every aspect is that there is no SOP. So people do not know what to do next,” IANS quoted him as saying.
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