One always feels nostalgic about the place such as Port Blair, after having spent two years post tsunami – professionally and personally , which was turning point in my life. Those days were spent by almost everybody with a hope that the grief of losing the dear ones and belongings will overcome by passing time and there is “Safe Future” restored in for all!. Many of us strived for that and traversed relentlessly from relief phase to recovery to rehabilitation. Today ,after 5 years of tsunami , if one takes the stock of what has changed and ask the question “have we made these islands “Safe” – the answer is not difficult – No. It indeed saddened me to see that the islands are still deprived of basic institutional measures to reduce risks have not taken place in these Islands, inspite of the fact that large resources have been given to these islands. What makes me more anxious is that there is no urge amongst the communities or the government for following the measures to reduce risks. The people are once again engaged in their small trades. The hotels have come up like Beehives in the city, excluding the building norms. For local government, the other revenue needs have once again preceded the need of disaster risk reduction. On the day when I was travelling, met an old fraternity friend of Port Blair, who was winding up her operations in Port Blair – completely disgusted at the overall outcome of the project. All the medical equipments she had for the islanders for setting up tele- medicine lied there idle, just due to lack of systems to take it up as their responsibility. On January 13thJan.,2010, when the news of Haiti spread the islands , the government of islands started taking stock of what is there for them to save again from Earthquake and Tsunami. Obviously, there is not much. One feels sad to see that both the communities and government are laid back and “Disaster Management” remains as a part of one man responsibility concerning the department. I can only hope that disasters do not come to this part of the world in near future to avoid witnessing the same trauma and grief of December 26,2004!
Shivangi: SEEDS |