20. The Tragic Town That Was Destroyed Twice In a Single Lifetime
Coringa, on the Bay of Bengal, is one of India’s most tragic settlements. Until 1839, it was a bustling port city, near the mouth of the Godavari River as it emptied into the Bay of Bengal on India’s east coast. It had a population numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and a harbor that hosted thousands of ships annually, busily loading and unloading goods and produce.
Today, Coringa is a tiny village near the coast, of no distinction or note, with a population of no more than a few thousand. The drastic decline in its population and fortunes was caused by a pair of devastating cyclones. The first occurred in 1789, and destroyed the town. Coringa bounced back, bigger, better, and more prosperous than ever. Then an even more destructive struck fifty years later, in 1839.