Some 67,000 tsunami survivors still living in tents

Some 67,000 tsunami survivors in Indonesian Aceh province are still living in tents, one year after the tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004 destroyed their homes.

The earthquake and tsunami in the province had left 500,000 people homeless, Antara news agency Saturday quoted the data from the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) as saying.

However, after the reconstruction program was begun to be implemented more than 300,000 people had returned to their homes and some 75,000 others were still staying in the homes of relatives.

According to the data, the agency would need to build 80,000 to110,000 houses for the natural disaster survivors and repair some 75,000 houses.

"To establish permanent houses for the survivors, the toughest challenge is legality and clarification of land ownership. Land ownership is a sensitive issue here," BRR chief Kuntoro Mangkusubroto has said.

The tidal wave last year took thousands of lives and caused serious damage to people's social life, economy as well as the environment in coastal areas.

The calamity, Kuntoro said, worsened economic conditions for the local people who previously were already categorized as living in conditions under the poverty line.

The tsunami did not only wipe out houses but also obliterated the boundaries of people's property.

With the help of non governmental organizations in the province,the BRR was planning to build 60,000 houses in Aceh and the entire program could be completed in mid 2007.

"But in remote areas such as in Nias Island and Simeulue, progress in rehabilitation and reconstruction is very slow because of difficulties in reaching many regions," Kuntoro added.

Till December, the agency had built 16,000 houses and some 13,000 others were under construction which meant that an average of 5,000 new houses were being built each month.

Since earthquake-triggered tsunami devastated parts of Aceh oneyear ago, more than 4.4 billion US dollars was spent on the implementation of more than 1,000 projects in the two regions.

An average of 150 million US dollars was spent on post-tsunami reconstruction effort per month, and the figure was expected to increase to 200 million US dollars per month next year, BRR said.

Source: Xinhua