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Unusual Historic Crises and Calamities

Khalid Elhassan April 16, 2020 34 min

12. Coringa’s First Disaster

Aftermath of the 1839 Coringa Cyclone. Monsters and Critics

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.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.