by Fu Shuangqi
NAGAPATTINAM, India, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- India's 1076-km-long southeastern coast is recovering from the deep wound left by the 2004 tsunami as fishing harbors become energetic and busy again.
At the small harbor Akkaraipettai on the coast of south Indian state Tamil Nadu, fishing boats were packing the inner port. Most of them, looking fairly new and possibly only two-year-old, have just unloaded catches.
"Everything is back to its place. Catches are like common years," said Ravi, a fishing worker. He earned about 5,000 rupees (111 U.S. dollars) a month in the fishing season of this year.
But that does not mean the sad memory is fully gone. Mala, 32-year-old mother of two sons, went to the beach Tuesday morning carrying a small oil lamp to perform her personal mourning "puja" (Hindu religious ritual) for her husband who died in the tsunami.
Several meters back from the beach lies a tsunami memorial. Villagers were holding a group puja in front of it, with fire set, incenses fuming, Hindu hymns sung.
And on the main street some 1,000 students and local residents were matching towards a ceremony marking the second anniversary of tsunami, each with a black ribbon pinned on the shirt and holding a rose.
From individuals to the administration, people are still struggling out of the "legacy" of tsunami which claimed 12,405 lives in India.
WHEN TO MOVE OUT
Nagapattinam of Tamil Nadu, the worst hit Indian district in tsunami, has seen about 50,000 people still living in temporary shelters and their new permanent houses remain a dream when two years have passed.
Kaliyamma and her husband have lived in a shady hut together with four children in a temporary sheltering camp at Nagapattinam town since their small house was washed away two years ago.
She said, happily and hopefully, that her family may get a permanent house in next three months, one kilometer from the temporary camp.
The timetable was set at six months when her neighbor Mariyamkanni was asked.
In this temporary camp home to 217 poor families, the news of moving out spreads and updates everyday but so far none of the residents has received a key.
"Every family here should have a new house but they don't know when. All they can see is possibility," said Rani Reddy, program officer of Action aid, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) which built this camp and is carrying out some relief projects here.
According to a report issued by United Nations, World Bank and Asian Development Bank in December this year, out of the 98,477 houses required in all tsunami-affected areas in India, 28 percent has been built.
RE-HOUSING CONFLICT
When it comes to new houses, the local fishermen obviously have different ideas from the government.
After the tsunami, the Indian government decided no house will be built within 200 meters away to the sea and thus many permanent houses were built inland, several kilometers away from the shore.
In Keechamkuppam village right located along the seashore, its 1,500 fishing families suffered a huge loss of properties in the tsunami. The government asked them to move to a new residence, one kilometer away.
The brand new apartment buildings are waiting for the owners but few have moved in.
"Fishing is our only way to make a living. If we stay so far away from the seashore, where should we put our boats and nets? You can't expect us to carry the boat for one kilometer all the way to the sea," said Poongodha, a Keechamkuppam villager. "We are worried about another tsunami but care more about the present livelihood."
The fishermen also did not like the apartment buildings as for generations they got used to individual houses and living in the ground floor.
In Andaman and Nicobar islands, another tsunami-hit area in India, some 1,000 tsunami-affected people went on street mid this month, asking the local government to take in their opinions when building new houses for them.
"Government reconstruction plans fail to recognize the diverse way of life of the Nicobarese, or the unique ecology of the islands with thin layer of tropical soil prone to erosion," said Samir Acharya, head of the Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology,a local NGO, in a press release issued in Delhi on Dec. 22.
Local people on the islands have found that the houses being built are far from their livelihood and that the prefabricated design means they can not repair them easily, according to the release.
To address the conflict, some NGOs have worked out the housing plans for those who are not willing to move out of the original sites.
According to Rani Reddy with the Action aid, they had provided each fishing family in Keechamkuppam, where houses were fully damaged, with 50,000 rupees (1,111 U.S. dollars) to rebuild a house in their own way.
ALCOHOL ABUSE INCREASES AMONG FISHERMEN
Adequate and prompt compensation has greatly helped tsunami-affected people recover from the disaster but caused some side effects as well.
According to a survey done in fishing communities in Chennai, Tamil Nadu capital, 64.71 percent of people surveyed had spent the compensation money on alcohol and 7.24 percent had spent all the money on that.
"Right after tsunami, the government gave cash compensation to each fishing family affected. For them it was a large sum of cash and for those having drinking habits the first choice might be alcohol," said S.D. Rajendran, director of Community Development Organization Trust (CDOT) which conducted the survey.
Alcohol abuse has long haunted the fishing communities. The survey showed that men reported an average drinking history of 17.62 years while women reported 11.12 years.
And after tsunami, especially after the compensation was disbursed, they took more alcohol than before.
About 50 percent of the men was abusing alcohol to cope with post-tsunami trauma while 37.5 percent of women did the same, the survey said.
But men drink much more than women and men have more access to the money as most compensation was paid to men, the breadwinner of the whole family, Rajendran said.
"If the husband spends the money on drinking, little will be left to the family for recovery and livelihood. This is a serious problem," he said.
The survey sampled 320 people from three fishing communities in October this year.
