Sri Lanka - post tsunami

I visited Sri Lanka in July 2005 - just over six months on from the devastating tsunami which shook the coast of this beautiful island.
I had never been before and I felt priviledged to be able to go to the country and report back to the tens of thousands of readers who had raised so much money for Unicef's campaign.

What I saw was a lot of devastation and lives ruined by death and loss. But there was also remarkable hope in the faces of the children and adults.

Yes, there was disillusion with how quickly the rebuilding was taking place. There was anger and fear but pride and bravery too.

I spoke to a child who had lost her mother. Her father had died some years before and when she had made sure her little brother was safe from the waves, she went to look for her mother. She found her dead by a church. She was hardly a teenager and had the world on her shoulders. But she had such a fantastic glow and smile. She was one of hundreds.

What was so remarkable was the rebuilding process and the chance it gave farsighted people to build back better - something Unicef was encouraging.

It might have seemed thousands of miles away from us at the time and displaced except for the British or western friends and family caught up - but often these were not people who had nothing and continued life with nothing.

For many who lost things, they were people who valued their possessions and were as house proud as anyone. It was they who were suffering the most psychological damage. It was frightening but heartening to see how they were coping with getting their lives back on track.


An extract:
WHEN a tsunami struck the shores of Sri Lanka on December 26 it killed thousands of people and left a trail of destruction in its wake.

For the survivors, the landscape which had once been a beautiful and tranquil home was turned into a wasteland. More than 500,000 people were left homeless and powerless.

Yet the aid given to charities has enabled many Sri Lankans to start rebuilding their lives and to find some kind of shelter after the storm.

The staggering amount of money raised by Citiz en readers has truly made a difference.

We launched our appeal with Unicef within hours of the disaster and it has so far raised more than £270,000. After the tsunami, those who lost their homes took shelter in makeshift tented camps. Some erected shelters on the spot where their home had been.

Seven months after the disaster, the camps are being replaced by temporary shelters, many donated by organisations such as Unicef ’s sister organisation UNHCR, the UN’s
refugee agency.

Around 80% of the temporary shelters have been completed but thousands of people are still living in clusters of brightly coloured hot and humid tents.

Many victims cannot understand why they have not yet been given a permanent home by the Sri Lankan government.

B. K. Ginandara and her husband A.E. Sunil have three children. They are living in a temporary shelter at Weligama on the south coast after their home was swept away.

Although safe and sheltered, they have no prospect of a permanent home.

Clutching her sick 10-month-old baby boy Nuraj, Ginandara said: “We had a house which we built at the side of my father’s home so it was not recognised by the government as a separate house.

“My father and his family will be given a permanent home but the government will not give us one because they class us as all the same family, as one unit.

“The new house will not be big enough for all of us. I don’t know what we will do. We have lost everything so we cannot buy a home or build a house.

“We have an eight-year-old son at school and a four-year-old too. My baby is sick. It is so dusty here – it is not good for the children.”

A needs assessment programme funded by Unicef showed that the semi-permanent camps get too hot during the day and at the Senanayake Ground, where Ginandara and her family live, the homes flood when it rains because of the poor drainage. In some camps at Weligama, there are problems with mosquito breeding grounds which
could spread dengue fever.

In Galle, facilities are overcrowded and lack privacy, and common problems across the affected regions include poor electricity supplies, security and high temperatures.

Geoffrey Keele, communication officer at Unicef Sri Lanka, said it was difficult to discover where the greatest needs were because some families, mainly middle class,
are staying with friends and family rather than remaining in camps.

He said people were confused about a rule which prevents building within 100 metres of the shoreline and said it was slowing progress. The government has said it
will enforce the buffer zone around the coast so homes, schools and businesses will be at least 100 metres from the shore.

At the village of Peraliya in the south west, where a train carrying 1,700 people was toppled by the tsunami a woman pointed out a hastily constructed wooden shed
metres from the rust-coloured carriages of the broken train. It stands in the place where her former home stood, about 70 metres from the shore.

“This is my home now,” she said. “The tsunami took my home and people from Denmark built me this. I will not move further away. If another tsunami comes, I will die here.”

Mr Keele said: “It is not law yet but the government are now saying the rule has always been there but not practised. But people do not know what is happening and everything feels very up in the air.

“Some are rebuilding and some are waiting. Some do not want to rebuild near the sea.

“The problem is that the government has to relocate tens of thousands of families and it is a very long process. They have to discover who owns the land. Many people were pretty much squatters and had built tiny huts between the ocean and the rail
tracks. It takes around a year for the planning permission and so on.

“It has been over six months since the tsunami but this is going to take years.

“We also want to make sure that we build back better with everything – schools, homes and healthcare – so that we are not just replacing things but taking the opportunity to make things better. It will give children and their families better
opportunities.

“With schools, Unicef are taking six to 12 months longer than most NGOs (non-government organisations) to make sure they are up to child-friendly standards. Each is going to be a flagship school where we know the needs of the children
and the community rather than being just bricks and mortar.

“We also have to be careful that we are not creating or worsening disparities across the country. The north has been badly affected through years of conflict and there is a very real poverty belt in the centre of the country. We do not want to aggravate
tensions between people who are getting help after the tsunami and those who also need help.”

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