New life from the depths of despair

More than £350m was given to the British Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) with a further £50m donated directly to charities.

Almost two years on, Bury Times sub editor MAXINE WOLSTENHOLME saw first hand how a fraction of that money has been spent to rebuild the homes and livelihoods of Indian families caught up in the disaster. She toured the south eastern coast of Tamil Nadu with the charity Tearfund, which received more than £20 million from DEC and direct donations and spent £6 million of that cash on projects in India.

THE sheer force of two 20-metre high waves that hit the coast of Tamil Nadu at 9am on December 26, 2004 killed almost 3,000 children and adults, and wiped out entire villages as it destroyed houses and wrecked fishing boats, the main source of income in a very poor local economy.

People were drowned as they tried to escape the seawater, many were hurled into palm trees and died of their injuries. Women lost their lives as they were trapped on thorn bushes that grow along the coast, their sarees caught up in the thorns as they tried to run from the beaches. Community memorial stones listing the names and ages of the dead bear testimony to the fact that children and elderly unable to swim were the most vulnerable of all.

At the time there was an outpouring of grief that the villages along the coast had never seen before. Although aid arrived the next day in the shape of food and temporary shelter, many believed the shroud of sadness that veiled almost every coastal community in a state of 55 million people would never be lifted.

Two years on, the pain of the loss of children and close family members is still very raw. But there is now a clear sense of hope in many villages, as they have benefited from the massive outpouring of sympathy from across the world on that tragic Boxing Day morning.

After the scale of the destruction became clear, the Indian Government decided that every village within 500 metres of the sea should be moved inland. To that end, local governments had to buy up and provide land on the inland side of a coastal buffer zone.

Then Non Government Organisations (NGOs) were allocated villages to reconstruct using the charity money that had been given across the world.

The British charity I was travelling with, Tearfund, had provided money to four Indian NGOs: Eficor, Discipleship Centre, Esaf and the Salvation Army.

We visited the villages they are in the process of rebuilding, watched houses going up, saw the effect such an injection of cash is having on the local economy, and spoke with villagers who wanted to pass on their thanks to the many people in the UK who gave money that is helping them rebuild their lives.

In Kuttiyandiyur village in the hardest-hit district of Nagapattinam where 1,500 people died, I met fisherman Silva Ghandi, who proudly showed off the new fibreglass boat Eficor has provided for him to share with three other families. With nets and a new engine, the boat cost £1,800, more than Mr Ghandi could have dreamed of saving in a lifetime. Through an interpreter, he described what happened on the day the tsunami came: "We were all setting our nets, when suddenly there was no noise and then the wave came in. We were inside the wave and were able to swim and I saved 15 to 20 people who could not swim. Then after half an hour I was able to look for my family, who had managed to escape."

The 177 houses being built in this village will be ready to hand over in December. Each is costing £2,500 to construct and they are being built using local labour, which has boosted the economy. Labourers can earn 100 rupees (£1.25) a day, while plasterers and masons can earn 300 rupees (£4) a day. The villagers were given a choice of five house designs and agreed on the one that suited them best. Each includes a living area, a sleeping area, a kitchen and a toilet, an innovation in most of the new villages.

In Pattaraiyadi, near Chidambaram in the district of Cuddalore, houses built 20 years ago by the Indian Government had collapsed. There, smiling women announced: "You have made us very happy. Now we have strong houses. In our life it would be impossible to build a house like this one. Please say thank you to the people who made it possible."

Workshops are held to teach villagers who have been used to living in mud and thatch homes how to look after and maintain brick-built houses.

As the NGOs tried to help traumatised villagers come to terms with their pain with counselling and face life once more, they introduced cash for work' programmes, paying people to help restore their own villages. At first it was difficult to engage the interest of devastated fishermen who had neither the means nor the inclination to face a trip out to sea. Instead, in the Nagapattinam village of Vellakoil, they were persuaded to express their anger by digging out the thorn bushes on which many of their wives had become trapped and perished.

"If not for this, it would be very difficult for us," said Mr Movamuthi, who had saved three children when his fellow villagers fled the tsunami wave.

Now, the villagers are planting a wall of 18,000 casurana trees over half a kilometre, which will act as a soak to any future danger from the sea. In a village protected by the same kind of trees further up the coast, not a single life was lost.

In Vellakoil 137 families were looking forward to moving into their new homes in a village being built further inland, together with a community hall and a creche. At present, they are staying in a temporary shelter provided by the government.

As Vellakoil fishermen took our party out on the Indian Ocean in two of their new boats, their joy at being back on the sea, doing what they do best, was clear to see. They are very grateful to the NGO staff who have helped them through these past two years. Project leader Mr Pandian said: "Anything they want, they will ask us. They tell us that if anything happens that makes them happy or sad, they will tell Eficor, and Eficor will put it right for them."

This confidence the NGOs have been able to build with the villagers has given them the base from which to run life-building courses and self-help groups. In the Nagapattinam village of Keelamoverkarai, drama and puppet shows are used to engage villagers and to teach them the value of sending their children to school, the dangers of drug addiction, and health and hygiene awareness.

In many villages, the NGOs have been able to teach fishermen's families new skills to diversify their income, such as tailoring and crafts. In addition, they teach villagers the principles of saving up, so that when the fishing season is over, they have the means to get through leaner months.

For the future, task forces have been set up in every village, teaching the villagers what to do in the event of an unusually high tide, or even another tsunami.

Mr Surimuthi, village leader in Pattarayaidi, Cuddalore, told us: "On full moon days the water comes up to our house and we sometimes wonder if it will be a tsunami again, but we have had training and now we have confidence. Thirty-five people have been trained in this village so that we have confidence to rescue people if it happens again."

The final day of our two-week tour was spent at the official hand-over of houses in a relocated village of Singaravelan in the district of Kanniyakumari, at the southern tip of India. It was a huge celebration in the presence of the District Collector Sunil Palilwal and Eficor's general director Dino Touthay, who told the villagers amassed under a vast marquee: "Nearly two years ago when the tsunami struck, the images in the media were very sad, we saw destruction and we saw death all around. Today we see young girls dancing a dance of joy because of what has happened here.

This is an occasion of joy that after disaster we are now able to have these permanent houses."

The first giant key to be handed over was to Mr Kasbar and his wife Jesipatha, whose only child had drowned in the tsunami.

Clearly Jesipatha was still mourning their loss, and she did not smile as she posed for photographs at the door of her new home. Her fisherman husband declared their thanks for their new start, and I felt that although nothing could compensate for the loss of their child, at least here was something to show for all of the money that had been donated across the world.