Bankola: a tall relic from glorious past of Coringa trading post

The abandoned lighthouse in the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary, erected in the 19th century, was recently opened for public; the Forest Department operates a speed boat to ferry tourists to the historic structure which is accessible only by waterway

Surrounded by dense mangroves for about a five-kilometre radius, an abandoned lghthouse stands as mute witness to the rise and fall of a trading post called Coringa that thrived on the shores of Cocanada during the 19th century.

The historical structure is accessible only by waterway, navigating through the channels of mangroves in the Coringa Wild Sanctuary (CWS) in the Kakinada district of Andhra Pradesh.

Abandoned several decades ago, the lighthouse was recently reopened to the public by the Wildlife authorities.

This allows the tourists exploring the mangroves’ natural beauty up close to also visit the trading post, one of the oldest on the East Coast.

The lighthouse at Coringa offers visitors a breathtaking view of the mangroves being caressed by the waves of the Bay of Bengal.

On November 25, 1839, the port city of Coringa was wrecked by a cyclone which destroyed 20,000 vessels and claimed the lives of an estimated three lakh people, according to the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory, U.S. Department of Commerce.

The lighthouse has also remained inaccessible to visitors and fisherfolk who had depended on Coringa for fishing and crab hunting for a very long time. Only recently did the Coringa Wildlife authorities take up the exercise of stabilizing the lighthouse and clearing the jungle to turn it into a tourist attraction.