Butet
needs no reminder of the day the tsunami levelled her neighbourhood.
The loss of her mother, father, brother and sister will live
with the young woman forever. But when she peers from her small
makeshift house in Banda Aceh, four kilometres from the sea,
she sees a 3,600-tonne ship towering above her.
Until 26 December, it was a floating power plant anchored offshore
and generating electricity for Banda and the surrounding area.
Then the tsunami picked it up, carried it inland and dropped
it on Punge, Butet’s district. Homes were crushed beneath
it and Punge has been in its shadow ever since.
A year on, Butet lives with her surviving sister in a two-roomed
dwelling fashioned from tsunami debris. The roof is of corrugated
iron and so peppered with holes that during the rainy season
the place resembles an upturned sieve. Butet doesn’t own
much but what she does own is wet.
There isn’t a specific statistic for people who endure
such deprivation, but there are thousands. Some may be included
in the 192,000 that the latest data categorizes as internally
displaced by the tsunami, some may not. For the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies though, they
are a priority, along with 67,500 Acehnese still living in tents.
Outside Butet’s home, a sturdy, steel-framed transitional
shelter is going up to keep the sisters in greater comfort until
they acquire a permanent home.
It is one of 20,000 custom-made shelters a Red Cross and Red
Crescent programme will deliver around Aceh and North Sumatra
by the end of March to get tsunami survivors out of tents and
shacks and into decent conditions. The 26-square-metre lightweight
units, already visible on Nias island as well as around Banda
Aceh and Aceh Besar district, were specially designed for local
conditions, ease of delivery and speed of assembly. The units
have to be lightweight because many heavily affected areas will
have to be supplied by landing craft and they can be easily
anchored in almost any conditions.
The International Federation is meeting the cost of manufacture
and shipment and passing the shelters on to implementing partners
working in Aceh, both Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and
other relief agencies. The partners prepare the communities
and select local workers, paid by the Federation, to erect the
structures with the help of future residents. The United Nations
is helping with coordination.
By providing temporary shelter across the affected area, the
Federation hopes to encourage agencies to maintain focus on
delivering good permanent housing as soon as possible.
Now the programme is to be widened to help others waiting in
poor conditions for permanent housing. Announcing the move at
the weekend, the Federation said that after the $100-million
first phase the plight of many people sheltered in barracks
and living with host families also had to be addressed.
The Federation will continue to monitor the situation and respond
to changing need. Around 15,000 families are reported to be
still in barracks and many more continue to share the homes
of neighbours and relatives. “We must rehouse the tent
and shack dwellers first because they live in the worst conditions,”
Arnulv Torbjornsen, the Federation’s Head of Delegation
in Indonesia, said. “But there are others suffering, too.
Overcrowding in particular can lead to tension and discomfort
and because of that some movement from host families to barracks
is already evident. We need to follow this carefully. Statistics
don’t tell the whole story.”
Torbjornsen said getting people back home was the Red Cross
and Red Crescent’s goal. “The prognosis for the
completion of permanent housing remains unclear so we will widen
our transitional shelter programme as far as our resources allow,”
he commented. “No one should remain in emergency shelter
much longer. People must be able to rebuild their lives and
they cannot start to do that until they have returned to their
home communities. These shelters will provide many with the
opportunity.”
The Canadian Red Cross is putting up 1,600 units and the first
have been placed in the village of Meunasah Kulam in Aceh Besar.
A woman called Mardiah watched from a tent as her temporary
home was built. She lost relatives and her home to the tsunami,
but she was smiling as she watched villagers assemble the steel-framed
shelters. Living in a tent, she divulged to a journalist, had
made her feel “like a flea in a hat”.
Jean Pierre Taschereau, Canadian Red Cross Programme Manager
in Aceh Besar, said the shelters would mark a significant improvement
in the villagers’ situation. “For a start, their
new homes won’t flood when it rains and sanitary conditions
will improve dramatically.”
The comment was echoed on Nias – badly affected by a 28
March earthquake as well – where another 64 were put up
last week by the Federation and Indonesian Red Cross. And in
Kampung Pande, on the edge of Banda Aceh, village leader Pak
Irdus said the first shelters there provided hope. Of its 500
households, Kampung Pande lost 350 to the tsunami, along with
all the houses, shops and fish ponds.
The Asian Development Bank will provide the village with new
permanent housing, and water and sanitation systems, but in
the meantime Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is overseeing the
assembly of the shelters as a Red Cross Red Crescent partner.
Some 52 families will be rehoused from tents.
“It may not be the final house, but it is a great improvement
on what we had,” Pak Irdus said. “We can look forward
now with more certainty. We appreciate all the efforts to help
our village. It is a good example of inter-agency cooperation.”
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Villagers
gather on Nias to discuss the assembly of their newly
arrived transitional shelters. (p13655)
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Many
hands make light work as Nias women get to grips with
their new shelters. Custom-designed for Indonesia, the
units are easy to assemble.
Photo: Corinne Treherne/International Federation (p13656)
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Work
in progress in Meunasah Kulam. People must be able to
rebuild their lives and they cannot start to do that until
they have returned to their home communities. The shelters
provide opportunity. (p13658)
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Mardiah
will move from her tent to the shelter rising behind her
in Aceh Besar. Her new home will bring greater comfort.
For a start it will not flood. (p13459)
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lined up in a Nias village and awaiting finishing touches.
The galvanized-steel frames have taken less than a day
each to put together. Looking forward to a better life,
the people of Nias can wait in comfort for the permanent
housing that is coming. (p13660)
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