INDIA: Relief workers are racing against time to build waterproof homes for more than 40,000 homeless tsunami survivors in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands before the annual monsoon hits in April.
However, they say they still have no final plan on how to do this. No building material is available even to start construction.
The refugees, more than 10 per cent of the 350,000 residents of the tropical island chain, are living in flimsy bamboo and plastic tents in relief camps across the remote isles.
"There is some reason for scepticism. Time is a constraint but we have to try," an official, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday.
Authorities are working on a plan, consulting housing experts on the mainland as well as the federal government.
Options include prefabricated fibreglass shelters or giving islanders free bamboo, timber and tin sheets to rebuild.
The islands are home to some of the world's most primitive hunter-gatherer tribes and were one of the areas worst hit by the tsunami, which killed more than 15,700 people in India.
As they try to cope with relief operations in the islands - where access, even for aid workers, is highly restricted - authorities are still recovering bodies more than two weeks after the tsunami.
Five southerly islands, with populations from 150 to 1,400, have been evacuated and authorities have yet to decide if they will be resettled or entire communities transplanted elsewhere.
"It was mind-boggling to see the devastation that has taken place," navy chief Arun Prakesh said after a tour of some of the worst-hit areas.
"All human structures have been destroyed and vegetation has been swept clean from many islands."
Almost no chance remained of finding those missing and feared dead, he said.
"Knowing the sea as one does, once an object or a body is swept off, it is unlikely it will come back or be recovered." Many of the almost 7,000 islanders dead or feared dead belong to the biggest and most advanced tribe, the 27,000-strong Nicobarese, most of whom now cram refugee camps in the capital, Port Blair, and elsewhere.
They live on straw mats under plastic sheeting and salvaged little if anything, of their possessions.
Other survivors are anxious for compensation so that they can rebuild as quickly as possible, before the five-month monsoon sets in.