The ghost town of Dhanushkodi: a place where time stood still (18 photos)

Halfway between India and Sri Lanka, in the Palk Strait, lies the narrow island of Pamban. Its only connection to the mainland was a century-old, two-kilometer-long railway bridge, considered one of the most dangerous in India.





The winds here are so fierce that trains crawl across the bridge at a snail's pace, otherwise they would simply be thrown off the tracks. The bridge's construction was unsettling: gaps between the ties revealed the turbulent sea, and the lack of safety railings left passengers heartbroken.



Thousands of pilgrims made this ten-minute journey every year to worship the god Rama. According to legend, it was here that he built a bridge of floating stones to Sri Lanka to rescue his wife, Sita. To their delight, a new bridge, Pamban, was opened this spring, parallel to the old one. The old, dilapidated structure was closed.





Half a century ago, on the opposite end of the island, there was a thriving town called Dhanushkodi. It stood on a sandy spit where the land between the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean is less than a kilometer wide. Its proximity to Sri Lanka made it an important trading hub with a ferry service, schools, hospitals, and a railway station.



Old Bridge

On the fateful night of December 23, 1964, a cyclone with winds of 240 km/h (150 mph) brought down a wall of water as high as a seven-story building on the city. A train carrying 115 passengers was swept into the ocean, and the city itself was wiped off the map. About 1,800 people died.



New Bridge

Dhanushkodi is now a ghost town with dilapidated buildings. Only a few hundred fishermen occasionally live here in thatched huts without electricity or water. In 2017, a road was built here in an attempt to attract tourists to this place frozen in time with an interesting, albeit tragic, history.



Tourists, both Indian and foreign, do indeed come here. The town has small shops, boat docks, bicycle and scooter rentals, and a small border crossing (as it is the closest point in India to Sri Lanka).



Dhanushkodi is currently a ghost town, but it has rich tourist and spiritual potential. It is not being restored as a settlement, but it attracts interest as an interesting historical, religious, and geographical site.





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