Building numbers: socio-cultural aspects of post-Tsunami housing

Abstract

Tsunami struck Sri Lanka on December 26th 2004. This has been the worst natural disaster in island’s history. Within hours the unprecedented destruction of quick snuffed around 40,000 lives, over 80,000 houses, and hundreds of villages and towns. In planning the resurrection of the coast, state agencies, NGOs, and professional bodies considered building of 80,000 houses within a year to resettle the displaced, in a country where only 6000 houses are built annually, as a daunting task. The government of Sri Lanka, commissioning local and foreign experts to plan the post- Tsunami reconstruction, aimed at raising living standards and economic development in the devastated coast. By trading off new lands for post Tsunami settlements with the reservations where those victims used to squat, it was planned to instigate regional development and to raise standard of living. The difficulty to secure land beyond the coastal reservation and the need to integrate new communities in die national and regional economic grid forced planning mass housing. The donors and politicians welcomed building big numbers for easy quantification of their achievements and for easy logistics management. Sustaining environmental qualities and socio-cultural aspects in housing, psychological state of the displaced, and grafting the socio cultural composition of the new communities in the evolved contexts were paid less attention.