11. Coringa’s Second Calamity
By 1839, half a century after “The Great Coringa Cyclone”, the city had recovered from the 1789 disaster, rebuilt, and was more prosperous, populous, and bustling than ever. Then, on November 25th, 1839, again unusually late in the Bay of Bengal’s cyclone season, a monstrous cyclone struck Coringa, and brought with it a 40-foot storm surge. The extensive damage of the earlier 1789 cyclone paled in comparison to this one, which wholly destroyed the city of Coringa, wrecked all ships in the harbor and carried their wreckage miles inland, and killed over 300,000 people.
This time the damage was so extensive that the few survivors made no effort to rebuild. Most upped stakes and scattered to pursue their lives elsewhere, putting distance between themselves and what was thought to be a cursed city. The few who remained, some of whom were old enough to have experienced both devastating cyclones during their lifetimes, abandoned the coast altogether and rebuilt their community miles inland.
