Andaman tsunami victims still wait for new houses

Bambooflat: Thousands of tsunami victims on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago are still living in temporary shelters almost three years after the devastating December 2004 tsunami washed away their homes.

A plan to build nearly 10,000 permanent houses has crawled behind several deadlines with work even at a showpiece project near the capital of the islands progressing lazily, making victims despondent in their filthy tin shacks that bake in the tropical sun.

They are the forgotten victims of one of the worst disasters mankind has known due to what aid groups say is the combined onslaught of bureaucratic ineptitude, avarice, natural hurdles and the physical and psychological distance from the mainland.

Far-flung

"Housing remains a burning issue for victims and progress remains very slow," said Anupama Muhuri of voluntary group ActionAid. "In fact, on some far-flung islands, they are still searching for sites to build permanent shelters."

"Where they have identified sites or construction has started they have not consulted the victims, taken their livelihoods into account or promoted joint ownership by couples," she said.

The Indian Ocean tsunami hit the remote Andaman and Nicobar archipelago badly, killing more than 3,500 people and displacing nearly 40,000 when it slammed into the scenic isles which are about 1,200 km east of the Indian mainland.

Authorities built temporary shelters for victims made of corrugated metal sheets, and initially promised to move them into new, permanent homes in early 2007.

But the projects have been marked by many slippages and several deadlines have come and gone.

Anniversary

Last December, on the eve of the second anniversary of the disaster, officials said all the 40,000 homeless would get permanent houses, a total of nearly 9,800 units, by the end of this year.

But no one trusts schedules anymore with the first houses in Bambooflat, a small island about a 30-minute ferry ride from Port Blair, the capital of the archipelago, still not ready three months after a May 31 deadline.

"Nobody is raising a voice because they fear that if they protest too much they may not even get what they might one day," Muhuri said.