1.5m still living in tents, barracks

1.5m still living in tents, barracks

Nearly 1.5 million people made homeless by last year's tsunami are still living in tents, barrack blocks and other temporary shelters, a British aid organization said on Wednesday.

In Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India -- the countries hardest hit by the killer waves -- land rights issues, a shortage of construction materials and government indecision initially slowed efforts to get survivors out of emergency shelters.

Roads and ports were also swept away by the Dec. 26 tsunami, making it hard to get to some of the most devastated areas, Oxfam International said in a year-end report on recovery efforts.

As result, only 20 percent of the 1.8 million people displaced by the waves are in permanent housing, it said. While most of the others are staying with host families, tens of thousands still live in tent camps.

"The emergency response was rightly commended for helping to save and improve thousands of lives," Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, said in the report. "But the rebuilding of communities will take much longer."

The tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean left at least 216,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries -- the majority in Indonesia's Aceh province.

Foreign governments and private donors pledged more than US$7 billion for reconstruction and rehabilitation, and thousands of international aid workers poured into the region to help.

While they succeeded in setting up emergency shelters quickly, saving thousands of lives, many did not have the experience or expertise to carry out mass projects to construct homes, Oxfam said.

Some of the things that stalled efforts to get people out of tents, barracks and the homes of family and friends were unavoidable, Oxfam said, noting that land in Aceh that once housed 120,000 people was permanently submerged under the water.

Communities also needed to provide input about the types of houses they wanted.

But other delays should have been avoided, the group said in its report, noting that governments were slow to allocate new and appropriate land for rebuilding and there was often little clarity over coastal buffer zones.

And survivors should have been told early on how long it would take to get them into permanent homes, Oxfam said.

The agency said that by the year's end, 18,149 of the minimum 80,000 permanent shelters needed in Indonesia will be completed. -- AP