Tsunami Survivors

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Lower castes fight tsunami relief discrimination
by Jai Krishna

     Nagapattinam (Tamil Nadu): In some areas of Tamil Nadu, one of the worst hit by last year's tsunami, the "Dalits" who figure at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, have alleged that they are being discriminated against in so far as getting relief and rehabilitation from the concerned authorities. The lower castes claim that they have not been allowed to share emergency shelters with others and denied access to community toilets. The community says most of their survivors are now living in graveyards or garbage dumps without proper sanitation and lighting facilities. Their roughly 14 square meter shelter, for a family of six to 10 members, are made of poor-quality cardboard sheets. Many say their plastic roofing has long blown away in the strong wind and rain while asbestos sheets make the shanties unbearably hot during summer. The community has now moved to courts, seeking justice with the help of voluntary organizations, who have travelled to remote areas to assess their living conditions. Most of the needy deposed before a seven-member public hearing committee, which comprised of a retired high court judge and several non- governmental organisations (NGOs) seeking compensation and rehabilitation. "I lost my house in tsunami as the waves washed it away. But the Government has not assured of any permanent or temporary shelter. Our only help is the voluntary organisation which came forward to build a house," said Gowri, a resident. "We do not have lands of our own. We have been working as daily labourers with landlords. We have approached the government now, as they have not given us adequate relief. We had protested against the attitude, we had met the collector, and given a petition. But nothing is happening," said Maria, another resident, after deposing before a public hearing committee.

     Relief has been distributed by the government, political parties, NGOs, local churches or community associations ever since the roiling sea destroyed everything more than eight months ago. But Dalits, most of them poor and uneducated say they cannot document their economic and property claims and so have been unable to access relief and also compensation and relocation schemes. Some 10,000 people were killed, 6,50,000 displaced and 2,00,000 houses damaged in the four zones -- Chennai, Cuddalore, Kanyakumari and Nagapattinam -- that make up these districts in Tamil Nadu. Nagapattinam has an estimated 130,861 lower castes living in 24 villages. Rights groups say their attempts to lend a hand to Dalits have been blocked by upper-caste groups, and local officials have refused to help them. "It's very important because for the first time this issue of discrimination against dalits getting relief has been highlighted in a big way. Dalits have been talking about it, but the fact that we brought hundreds of people affected and the jury has travelled and met those who have been discriminated in a big way I think it has helped us also to know the depth of the discrimination," said Shabnam Asmi, a social activist.
-Sept 5, 2005

Amitabh Bachchan meets tsunami's orphans (Go To Top)

     Mumbai: Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan met children orphaned by the December 26, 2004 tsunami in Mumbai on Thursday. The group of children belonged to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where thousands were killed by the tsunami last year. Multiple Encounter, an international relief team, had brought the group of girls on a tour to Mumbai. Bachchan said he was glad to make the children happy. "I was very glad to meet them and I hope that by my meeting them we had been able to bring some kind of happiness or joy in their lives because that's the aim of this group," he said. The UNICEF estimates that tsunami killed at least 50,000 kids. In some of the worst hit areas, at least three of every four children died, wiping out virtually an entire generation. From fishing villages in south India to plush beach resorts in Thailand, too small and weak to run fast enough, to swim or to hold on to safety, kids were the biggest and most tragic victims of the tsunami.

     The children said they were awestruck on meeting the living legend. "We never thought that one day we would meet Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi. We are very lucky to meet them," said Suchitra, a tsunami-affected girl. Tulsi, another tsunami-affected girl said: "I felt very happy on meeting Abhishek Bachchan. I met Rani Mukherjee and Abhishek Bachchan also. It was a very good experience." Officials estimate that December 26 tsunami killed at least 13,230 people in India, although only 7,000 deaths have been confirmed. In India, around 600,000 tsunami survivors are living in camps or temporary shelters. Besides provincial authorities, the UNICEF is also counselling more than 100,000 traumatised children in the 13 affected districts of Tamil Nadu and has trained several volunteers to give sustained guidance to the children. As per officials close to 100 billion rupees (2.3 billion dollars) is needed to rebuild damaged infrastructure and rehabilitate tens of thousands of people who lost their homes, livelihood and relatives in the tsunami catastrophe. The tsunami is the world's biggest disaster since a cyclone killed 130,000 people in Bangladesh in 1991. The huge tidal wave, triggered by a massive earthquake at the Indian Ocean, killed more than 250,000 people from Asia to Africa.
-Sept 2, 2005

Tsunami rehabilitation at Nagapattinam gets a new patron  (Go To Top)
by Jaikrishan

     Nagapattinam: The Metro Cash and Carry India, a wholesale and retailing group recently launched its tsunami rehabilitation project in Nagapattinam. J Radhakrishnan, District Collector, Nagapattinam, after launching the Metro-Beisheim Tsunami Rehabilitation Projectand and laying the foundation stone for state-of-the-art fish auction centre said that the district administration so far has sanctioned construction works for about 17,700 permanent shelters to be carried out by non governmental organisations at a cost of Rs 300 crore. He said the district is receiving steady flow of funds from the State government for various long pending infrastructure development projects. The Government has sanctioned Rs 53 crores for the construction of various bridges in the district. So far, 600 fishing boats have been distributed to the affected fishermen by various NGOs. He appealed to the public to coordinate with the Collectorate in the rehabilitation works as it would take more time to attain the pre-tsunami status. He said In Akkrepettai, Paleyar and Vaderevu, the implementation of the project will result in modern world class facilities for fishermen to auction their fish in safe and hygienic conditions, thereby, positively impacting the quality of fish, which reaches the market. Other than providing fibre boats, the funds will be used to construct five desalination plants across the district to provide clean portable water in the coastal areas. He added the company also has plans to sponsor education for the children orphaned by the disaster and appreciated the biggest contributor for this project, Dr Otto Beisheim, the founder of the Metro Group who made a personal contribution of Rs one crore. -Aug 14, 2005

New hope for Tsunami-hit farmers in Andaman islands  (Go To Top)
by Soma Mitra

     Port Blair (Andaman Islands): Scientists of a state-run agricultural institute here have ushered in a new hope for disheartened farmers of a Tsunami ravaged village in the southern Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Central Agricultural Research Institute or CARI, based in New Delhi, has adopted Guptapara village in Andaman's capital Port Blair under a state-run project to rehabilitate Tsunami affected people through technological intervention. Last December's Tsunami water had penetrated up to three kilometers inland in some places in the Andaman Islands and in the process devastated settlements and ravaged houses. Guptapara was one such village. In theory, farmers could restore their fields by flushing them with fresh water. But many irrigation channels were themselves destroyed in the tsunami. Salinity made it impossible to cultivate any crop.

      It was in this scenario that the CARI scientists stepped in. Through several meetings with villagers, scientists not only assured them that things would become better, they introduced several technological measures to make things move. The initially apprehensive farmers slowly tried out the CARI techniques. "The land is still half submerged under sea water and we are growing some paddy in the waste. We don't know if it will be productive or not. They (CARI) say that it will be productive and so we are pursuing it," said Saraswati, a land labourer. Farmers were given a salt resistant paddy, a variety developed by CARI scientists at their laboratories in New Delhi following a special method called SRI. SRI drastically reduces the number of seeds required for cultivation while improving productivity. "They (farmers) had lost their hopes on seeing the sea water submerge their lands, but, our team came in and motivated them and made them understand that there are some varieties that grow in salt water and after that the farmers started cultivating again and now we have started work now, " said Kanak Lata, a CARI scientist. Initially it was difficult to motivate villagers to return to their field, which had been inundated with saline water. But CARI scientists visited each house and convinced them. With barely half a million population, the island chain, close to the epicenter of the December 26 tsunami off Indonesia's coast than Indian mainland, bore the brunt of the huge killer waves. About 3,500 people died in the archipelago and some 2,000 remained missing.
-Aug 12, 2005

Tsunami early warning system on track for 2006 (Go To Top)

      London: Delegates from the 27 Indian Ocean countries met in Perth, Australia last week for the first UNESCO intergovernmental coordination group meeting, wherein they decided to install a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean by mid-2006, but the precise technical specifications are yet to be defined. "The schedule is for us to have a system running by the middle of next year - and that is definitely on the cards. It won't be the complete system, but there will be enough of it to be moderately reliable," New scientist quoted Peter Dexter, head of the ocean policy unit at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology as saying. Delegates also agreed to set up a working group to focus on plans for ocean-floor pressure sensors that can pick up even tiny changes in pressure in the water column, and can more accurately detect an advancing tsunami. The working group will determine exactly how many are needed and where, and who will deploy them. But this system probably will not be fully operational for three to four years, says Dexter. "The details are still to be worked out, but the meeting determined that the centres should coordinate among themselves to develop protocols for the exchange of information, so they all ultimately act on the same information," Dexter added.
-Aug 9, 2005

Tsunami affected want to return to Andamans (Go To Top)

     Visakhapatnam: The Andaman and Nicobar islands continue to be a destination for thousands of labourers from Andhra Pradesh despite having experienced a setback due to tsunami last year. Labourers from this State, who had returned from the islands, are flocking again the Visakhapatnam port to sail back. Only one vessel sails to the archipelago(group of islands) every month leading to a mad rush for tickets. But the labourers say they have no other place to go. "We can at least live a decent life there by working and we want to go to Andamans. We can earn upto 100-200 rupees (2.3 to 4.6 dollar) there and can also afford education for our children. We can live a better life out there," said Hema, a local. Many complain that not enough vessels are sailing to the island. "Due to tsunami, we came back but survival is very difficult here. Ninety percent of the people are labour class and so they want to go there to work," said Ramakrishna. Shipping officials say the number of passengers had picked up tremendously over the last three months. "After the tsunami effect on the Andaman islands, initially, the number of people going to Andaman islands by these passenger vessels seemed to have decreased. But, over the last three months, the number of people going have increased," says G.V.R. Mohana Rao, a shipping agent. The islands were shaken by a strong quake last month but fears of new killer waves hitting the Indian Ocean archipelago are unfounded. Indian officials say there is no danger of a repeat of the cataclysmic tsunami that left about 2,27,000 people dead or missing around the ocean's shores last December. More than 550 islands in the archipelago have experienced hundreds of aftershocks since December. The December 26 tsunami was triggered by a 9.15 magnitude earthquake. The tsunami, which was triggered by an undersea earthquake in Indonesia, killed more than 13,000 in India alone.
-Aug 2, 2005

Andamans tsunami-hit still wait for relief seven months on  (Go To Top)
by Soma Mitra

     Port Blair (Andaman Islands): Even seven months after the disastrous tsunami hit India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, victims there are still awaiting rehabilitation. With barely half a million population, the island chain, close to the epicenter of the December 26 tsunami off Indonesia's coast than Indian mainland, bore the brunt of the huge killer waves. About 3,500 people died in the archipelago and some 2,000 remain missing. Over 40,000 people were rendered homeless in the islands after the giant tsunamis, triggered by an earthquake measuring 9.15 on the Richter scale. Though slush with federal funds, displaced people, mainly farmers, say rehabilitation is a trickle too slow. There are still sites where people live in temporary or "intermediate shelters" with no basic amenities and proper food. In many places such as Little Andaman and Car Nicobar Island, the temporary shelters have still not been complete even as the islands were swept by monsoon rains, beginning May. "We have been staying in the shelter home. Eleven people have been allotted this shelter home but only three have been allotted ration cards. We have lost our fields and agricultural land, so how will we manage?" asked Bharti Madhu, a shelter home dweller in Chouldari. Madhu said they did not have proper roads linking them to main city, making life difficult, while during rains, their temporary homes were also flooded. Shelter dwellers said they were being provided less rations, which cannot sustain for more than 15 days against the promised one month.

      Several social organisations, which pitched in at war footing after the tsunami, alleged that the construction of intermediate shelters was tardy which heated up during summers and doubtful these would withstand strong earthquake like the 7.0 magnitude Richter scale tremors felt on July 24, the second biggest tremors since December 26. "Till date the intermediate shelters are under construction. This is a simple construction made of tin. They are saying this is earthquake resistant structure and till now nobody knows when the permanent shelter is going to come up," said Jijit Rekh, a voluntary worker. But Chief Secretary of Andaman and Nicobar, D.S.Negi, denying lacunae in rehabilitation, said affected people have been moved into 10,000 intermediate selters across the islands while earthquake resistant permanent homes are under construction. "Today everybody is staying in intermediate shelters. We give them electricity free, it will continue till October or so. We have given cylinder for cooking purpose to each of the inmates. Then basic amenities like water and electricity, then maintenance of the toilets, drainage is being maintained by the government," said Negi. According to the government reports, 11,000 hectares of land had been hit by the tsunami of which 1,700 hectares cannot be retrieved at all. Coconut plantation had been totally damaged. Federal government had announced a relief and rehabilitation package of 2.35 Billion rupees for the reclamation of land for agricultural use. Negi added that they have launched several schemes including buy back policy for the farmers who have lost all their agricultural land in the tsunami. Twenty percent of the entire coconut plantation was damaged in the tsunami and officials said they are initiating projects where the farmers would plant saplings themselves to cut down on the costs.
-Aug 2, 2005

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