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at the shelter for the last four days. They had been eating raw coconuts
but now these were insufficient for the large number of people.

Prashant, all of nineteen years, decided to step in as leader of his
village, if no one else did. He organised a group of youths and elders to
jointly pressurise the merchant once again to part with his rice. This time
the delegation succeeded and returned triumphantly, wading through the
receding waters with food for the entire shelter. No one cared that the
rice was already rotting. Branches from fallen trees were gathered to
light a reluctant and slow fire, on which to cook the rice. For the first time
in four days, the survivors at the cyclone shelter were able to fill their
bellies. His next task was to organise a team of youth volunteers to
clean the shelter of filth, urine, vomit and floating carcasses, and to tend
to the wounds and fractures of the many who had been injured.

Triumphantly: victoriously
Bellies: stomach

Prashant who was very young at the age of nineteen, decided to lead
the crowd of distraught villagers. He formed a group of villagers,
including the elders and the youth. They planned to force the local
merchant to give them the stock of grains and rice to feed the people.
The group succeeded and swam through the floods to get food for the
crowd. No one was bothered by the fact that the rice was getting rotten
because they were starved and were ready to eat even the rotting rice.
The branches of broken trees were used to kindle a fire. As they were
wet, burning a fire was an arduous task. It was a slow fire but they
managed to cook the rice on it. The survivors ate a meal after four days.
The second task of the group was to clean the shelter. They removed
garbage, cleaned excretory wastes, dead bodies and tended the injured.

On the fifth day, a military helicopter flew over the shelter and dropped

some food parcels. It then did not return. The youth task force gathered
empty utensils from the shelter. Then they deputed the children to lie in
the sand left by the waters around the shelter with these utensils on their
stomachs, to communicate to the passing helicopters that they were
hungry. The message got through, and after that the helicopter made
regular rounds of the shelter, airdropping food and other basic needs.