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India's lost paradise
24/01/2005 15:18 - (SA)
Port Blair, India - Despite a massive rebuilding plan for the Andaman and Nicobar islands devastated by tsunamis last month it may take years before tourists return in large numbers.
More than 100 000 people visit the islands yearly. When the tsunamis struck on December 26, some 5 000 visitors were stranded in 10 of the archipelago's 56 inhabited islands open to tourism and had to be evacuated to the mainland.
New arrivals have slowed to a trickle, hoteliers say.
"We are afraid to check our e-mail because each time we switch on our computers cancellations just pour out," said DP Roy of the once-posh Sinclair Resorts in the capital city of Port Blair.
The low-lying chain of 556 islands spread over 800km in the Indian Ocean lies closer to the epicentre of the earthquake in Indonesia than to the Indian mainland 1 200km west.
The proximity led to damages estimated at 25 billion rupees (about R3,3bn) and at least 1 903 dead with 5 551 missing and likely dead, comparable with the hardest-hit state of Tamil Nadu where a total of 7 983 are confirmed killed.
Government and military officials have promised to pour aid into the islands to rebuild an air base, homes and businesses.
So beautiful
"We have suffered a crippling blow especially at our peak season but we are confident the tourism sector will see a speedy revival because our islands are so beautiful," said Rana Mathews, speaking for the archipelago's tourism office.
The Indian military, which rushed to help tsunami victims of Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives, is racing to build homes, roads and jetties for thousands of survivors living in more than 100 camps on remote isles.
"The second phase of 'Operation Help' will see the construction of 10 000 plus houses before monsoons arrive in April," said Lieutenant General Aditya Singh, whose soldiers rescued 50 000 survivors in the past month.
Gigantic task
"It is a gigantic task but we now have to think of the living," he said, adding the final phase of his mission would be to build new housing for many of the island's 356 000 tsunami-scarred inhabitants.
Still, the scale of rebuilding is immense and concern is growing that rare tribal aboriginal populations in the islands may face pressure to move from destroyed islands, which could lead to their extinction.
These include the 98-strong Onge tribe which lives in reserved tropical forests on Little Andaman island, the 200 fierce and reclusive Sentinelese who live on North Sentinel island, 49 Great Andamanese, 350 Jarawa and 250 hunter-gatherer Shompen.
"So much tragedy... entire populations, generations (may be) wiped out in a single stroke but still there are no answers," said Samir Acharya of the Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology group in Port Blair.
The disaster took its worst toll in the coral reef island of Katchal where 4 310 were declared missing.
The slowness in declaring the missing as dead has rankled with survivors who can claim compensation once the deaths are officially listed.
Great tragedies
"It is for our parliament to make laws which can declare people missing in such great tragedies as dead but we cannot do so as long as we do not find the bodies," said Andaman's federal administrator Ram Kapse.
Kapse also admitted the rebuilding effort will take time.
However, he noted the islands have immense strategic value to the Indian military as a base of operations for naval patrols along the Malacca Straits, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and to patrol the Bay of Bengal.
More than 100 aftershocks since the December 26 earthquake have increased fears and delayed efforts to rebuild.
Geographical surveyors finished mapping the archipelago this weekend with initial findings suggesting a shifting of Port Blair by 1.5 metres.
"These island have taken a terrible beating in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, trade and tourism," said Mohammed Jadwat, president of the Andaman Nicobar Island Chamber of Commerce.
"We now need state subsidies and soft loans to help put these four sectors back on their feet but still it will take several years for the people to break even," Jadwat warned.
- AFP
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