Third Anniversary of the Tsunami--Accomplishments and Problems

Pakistan, Iraq, Darfur... The world's hotspots are many, and it's all too easy to be swept along by the latest in the never-ending maelstrom of crises. So who has time to pause and consider what, in terms of the short-attention news cycle, is an ancient event. December 26 marked the third anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Much has happened since the catastrophe of three years ago, both good and bad. Rebuilding has progressed in fits and starts. Indonesia's Aceh province, ground zero, was able to use the post-disaster goodwill to terminate a long-running armed conflict. Sri Lanka, by contrast, lapsed back into fighting between the Sinhala majority and Tamil minority, even though some had hoped that an Aceh-style peace initiative might be possible.

Quoted by IRIN News, Sri Lanka's Information Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa extolled his country's accomplishments: "In contrast to other tsunami devastated countries, the Sri Lanka government has performed a tremendous job in its relief, rehabilitation and resettlement process with an overall 80 percent success.” But, as IRIN notes, it's a success shared by most, but not all. Some survivors continue to languish in welfare shelters, and others contend with new settlements that lack basic facilities, including access roads, water and sanitation, and electricity. An ILO study also found substantial problems relating to lack of public safety, infrastructure, and limited income generating opportunities.

Traveling along the country's southern coast in January 2007, I remember seeing many shacks in areas quite close to the capital Colombo (see the image above left, from my Flickr album). Some rebuilding projects have resulted in impressive new settlements. I visited one such village near Kalutara, an hour south of Colombo. Houses for 55 families of tsunami survivors were built by Sarvodaya Shramadana Society on a plot of land the government made available, about 4 kilometers from the coast. The houses are simple, but sport solar panels on the roof, rainwater harvesting, recycling. (See image at top on right.) Drinking water provision remains a problem, as does the lack of transportation to the coast--many of the inhabitants once made a living as fishermen.

The south is a region that, compared especially with the areas affected by the resumed civil war, has fared quite well. Sri Lanka’s north and east sustained 60 percent of the damage wrought by the tsunami. But about a year after the tsunami struck, in December 2005, reconstruction in the north and the east was already beginning to show signs of slowing and lagging behind--principally because there was a lack of land on which to build permanent housing for tsunami survivors. The resumption of violence between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2006 added massive problems. The northeast, already saddled with weak public services and poor infrastructure, is increasingly difficult to access. Essentially reconstruction in the northeast came to a standstill.

According to the government's Reconstruction and Development Agency (RADA), by March 2007 more than 76,000 permanent houses had been built, with another 34,000 in progress. The southern districts of Galle, Matara, and Kalutara have fared very well, and in Hambantota (where President Rajapakse hails from), the number of houses constructed is far in excess of the estimated requirement. But districts in the east (with 59 percent of housing needed completed) and in the north (with just 28 percent) lag far behind.

RADA figures for December 2007, cited by IRIN News, indicate that almost 100,000 houses countrywide had been provided out of the initial requirement of 117,372 units in the 13 affected districts. The national average of 85 percent housing reconstruction is far higher than the 39 percent in the north, as of October.

Sri Lanka's post-tsunami reconstruction gap is as big a problem as its ongoing political-ethnic confrontation, and both issues are tightly related to one another.