12. Coringa’s First Disaster
After centuries of prosperity, Coringa’s fortunes took a hit in 1789. In December of that, a storm that came to be called The Great Coringa Cyclone developed in the Bay of Bengal – fairly late in the cyclone season. It produced severe storm-tide conditions, and witnesses described a succession of three giant waves striking Coringa. The first storm tide drove ashore all the ships in anchorage. The second and third waves, even bigger than the first, flowed inland to inundate with salt water the fertile fields of the Godavari River’s delta. Coringa was almost completely destroyed, and around 20,000 people were killed.
Naming the 1789 disaster “The Great Coringa Cyclone” was akin to those who named the 1914 – 1918 global war “The Great War”, little knowing that an even greater calamity would soon follow. Those who named the 1789 storm did not suspect that an even bigger and far more devastating cyclone would strike Coringa within a lifetime.