Tsunami- Relief and Restoring Livelihoods & Habitats DHAN Foundation Initiatives - Update 4 January 06, 2005
Background: Tsunami and its devastating effect A powerful ‘Great Earthquake’, which had its epicentre in Sumatra on 26 December 2004 with a degree of 8.9 on Richter scale, set off massive ocean waves called Tsunami of huge magnitude. In nature and scale it was an unprecedented event causing colossal destruction. The damage caused by the Tsunami is beyond imaginations in the shorelines across South and South East Asia. The death toll reported as on 5 January 2005 was nearly 150, 000 across the region while thousands of the people are missing. India and Sri Lanka are the worst affected in the disaster as more than 40,000 people were reported killed from these countries. In India, the Tamil Nadu coast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands took the brunt of the killer waves. Nearly 9775 people are killed by the Tsunami in India of which 7,910 deaths were reported from the coastal villages of Nagapattanam, Cuddalore, Chennai, Kancheepuram and Nagercoil districts of Tamil Nadu. The remaining are from Pondicherry, Andaman & Nicobar and Vishakapatnam, Prakasam and East Godavari districts in Andhra Pradesh. Nagapattanam district is the worst hit in Tamil Nadu as the death toll in the district itself has crossed 6,000.
Cross reference from the Daily "The Hindu" dated 05/01/05
Table 1: Details of Villages, Population and lives affected in Tamil Nadu
Source: Disaster Management and Mitigation Department, Govt. Information Cell Revenue Administration (as on 6th January 2005 at 10:00 Hrs. IST) It has been estimated that over 8,90,885 people are affected in the disaster pockets Tamil Nadu. Children and women became the major victims for the killer waves and 40 per cent of the persons killed by the waves are children. The fishing communities are the ones who are worst hit by the devastation wrought by the killer waves. Several thousands of houses were washed away and people have lost all their assets, nets etc. Nearly 90 per cent of the death is among the fisher folk as most of them live very near the coast. The ferocity of the waves that hit the coastal lines was unimaginable. The waves of several metres high lifted up mechanised trawlers, boats and catamarans to several hundred metres away from the shore and dumped them on the houses, buildings and roadside. The response from the community to the calamity is quite encouraging. Disaster mitigation measures in terms of immediate relief and restoration by the Governments, NGOs, Corporate agencies and individuals are undertaken in a big way. Although a lot is being done, the extent of the tragedy is such that there is a greater need for many players to work together to rebuild the affected communities and restore their livelihoods. DHAN’s tsunami mitigation initiatives so farDHAN Foundation has started responding taking various initiatives to mitigate the impact of the one of the worst calamities the country has experienced. In order to assess the intensity of damage caused by tsunami and to identify the areas of interventions five DHAN teams visited the affected places. As an immediate follow up to the visit four field level teams have been placed to undertake relief activities and a central coordination cell has been set up for over all management. Rapid Disaster Assessment for Reconstruction (RADAR) by DHAN teams As part of the tsunami relief initiatives, five teams comprising of 8-10 members in each team including senior professionals, movement leaders, local field associates visited the districts affected in the calamity - Nagapattanam, Cuddalore, Kancheepuram, Ramanathapuram, and Tuticorin and Union territory of Pondicherry. The primary objectives of these visits are as follows.
The teams adopted techniques such as review of secondary information available from the media reports and government updates, interaction with the officials of district administration, field observation, interactions and Focused Group Discussions with the affected people, dialogue with the community leaders and case studies of individuals. The teams visited as many as 40 villages out of the total 362 villages affected in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. The observations made during the field visit are described as below. The damage: Loss of lives and livelihoods The damage includes loss of lives, houses, boats, fishing nets, household articles, damage to the standing crops and agricultural fields etc. More than 3,000 persons are killed in the villages visited and majority of them are fisher folk. Children are the most affected in the disaster and many have become orphans. Besides, the intrusion of the seawater has severely affected the standing crops such as groundnut, paddy, cashew nut, coconut etc. in the agricultural fields of the coastal villages besides deteriorating the quality of the soil rendering them uncultivable without reclamation. It was also observed that the damage to the crops and agriculture is not reflected in the government reports and records. Common infrastructure such as electric poles, drinking water systems, bridges, schools, hospitals, community hall etc. have also been damaged of destroyed. Many people, fisher folk in particular have lost their employment at least temporarily due to this calamity. Majority of the fishermen are neither interested nor able to undertake other livelihood activities since they are not aware or have requisite skill of the vocations other than fishing. The damage was severe in Nagapattanam and Cuddalore districts and it was marginal in Ramanathapuram and Tuticorin districts. For more details of the field assessment refer annexure 1 Status of relief operations Temporary stay and food arrangements have been made by the Government for the affected people. These relief camps are set up in schools, marriage halls, churches and other community centres. Many of these centres are far away from the affected areas. The relief works are primarily coordinated by the state government with the involvement of Panchayats and a team of IAS officers under the guidance of state ministers are organising the operations especially in the district of Nagapattanam where the impact has been most severe. Several NGOs and philanthropic individuals are also actively involved in the relief operations. The relief works involve clearing debris, removing dead bodies, supply of water, food material, mats, blankets, electricity supply, provision of basic medical aid and sanitation. The relief materials particularly food articles, particularly rice and clothes are sent from various parts of the country have landed in the affected districts. The government has centralised the collection and distribution of the relief materials. The state officials are in the process of creating a database about each centre and the material collected. In order to manage the water scarcity the district administrations have taken initiatives like supplying ‘polythene over head tanks’ and trying to provide water supply. The government and NGOs have set up medical camps to provide medical services. Local Panchayats and municipal corporations take care of sanitation works in the affected areas. Though many NGOs, government is involved in relief work there exists some confusion in terms of coordination of efforts to reach the benefits to all the villages. In few villages the community with the support of the Panchayat have taken the initiative to co ordinate the relief work but there is lack of organised support form any NGO for facilitation. However in Kancheepuram the Kalanjiam federations and fishermen associations and the church have taken the lead in co ordinating the relief work with the government. In a few places inequitable distribution of relief materials among the affected people was observed. The local moneylenders were seen to taking away the cash provided to the affected people as part of relief measures to recover the loans they had lent especially in some of the villages visited in Cuddalore district. In many places community organisation in the affected areas was seen to be weak. In villages where local organisations like fishermen associations, village associations, Panchayats etc. are active good coordination was observed. As far as relief materials are concerned, only rice being supplied while people are in need of grams, edible oil, kersone, soap, condiments etc. Adequate emphasis was not given to meet the needs of kids, school going children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. Medical support given by the government was inadequate and there is an urgent need to strengthen this. Beyond the relief services, the affected people expect support for restoring their livelihoods and habitats. People in the severely affected villages (in terms of deaths) are yet to come out of the fear but the people in the other villages have accepted the devastation and slowly getting back to cleaning their houses and looking forward to to rebuilding a new future. Placing DHAN field teams for Action As an immediate follow up of the field visits DHAN Foundation has placed ten field teams in all locations to co ordinate and support immediate relief operations. DHAN Foundation is already working in some parts of the selected locations. Some of the communities with which DHAN is working in these areas have also been affected by the disaster. DHAN is committed to working with these communities on a long-term basis and help them rebuild their lives and livelihoods. It is also envisaged that DHAN would work in collaboration with other agencies to create access to basic services for the community while retaining its focus on rebuilding the livelihoods of the community. The whole effectiveness of the relief operations depends on the field teams and these teams are constituted by the professionals who have long years of grassroots action. A central coordination cell has been setup including senior level professionals of the organisation and the cell is operating from Madurai and Chennai. A pool of resource persons are also being involved to provide guidance and support to co ordinate the relief and rehabilitation work.The field teams would be assisted by a team of 10-15 volunteers from within the community. It would also provide an opportunity for volunteers to work along with the team especially during the first phase of relief and restoring livelihoods. The field teams would be equipped with infrastructure such as vehicles, hired buildings for office administration etc. in order to undertake more efficiently. The coordination cell at DHAN Foundation would coordinate the entire effort. This cell would also take an important role in mobilising resources both in cash and kind for the community and would avail the consultancy services of the experts in the field. This team would be aided by a full time secretariat at the central office that would converge with the filed teams, community, donors and provide the requisite support for each of the teams to carry out their work. This initiative is expected to reach out to about 40-50 thousand families in the selected coastal zones over a period of time. The location wise details of the Tsunami relief operations are presented below.
Each of the location team is headed by a professional staff of DHAN and supported by a four member experienced support staff with community skills. In addition, local volunteer from the community would be placed in the each of the affected village to work with the community. The district operations are being guided and coordinated by a senior team leader or programme leader of Dhan Foundation placed at respective district headquarters.
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