ABSTRACT
The Indian East coast is four times more susceptible to tropical cyclones than the western coast in terms of the intensity of the cyclonic happenings. This makes the eastern coast ever more vulnerable to huge loss of lives, homes, infrastructure, flora & fauna, etc. Furthermore, the Vulnerability Assessment reports extensively deal and simplify these as annual statistics represented as percentages of regional, state-based, and likewise.
The paper intends to focus on the existing condition of a heritage village, Kapateswar in Puri Sadar situated adjacent to river Bhargavi, ravaged by the cyclone in depth. The study documented the unguarded conditions of the people struggling to survive in the region through manual data collection, visual analysis, and interviews.
Considering the differences in the type of damages to the houses, the paper developed a vulnerability indicator to categorize it along with multiple parameters including architectural techniques & joineries, materials used- comparison of now and then, type of vegetation, and others.
The paper leads to the conclusion for the need to focus on the requirements for explicit solutions in terms of built structures, community-level management, and planning techniques, and the provision of disaster shelter in the area with the comparative study with an unscathed heritage Shiva temple, existing within the village premises.
