NAGAPATTINAM: Lying under the makeshift hut constructed just beside the ruins of her old house, P Rajalakshmi stares at the wall that no longer bears the ceiling it once bore, praying that it doesn’t fall on her toddlers and her family.
The concrete roof fell last year during heavy rains when the family was not inside the house. Rajalakshmi’s house in Ambedkar Nagar is one among the 9,000 houses known as ‘tsunami houses’ built across Nagapattinam district by multiple NGOs for people who lost their homes in the 2004 tsunami.
The fate of most of the ‘tsunami houses’ in Ambedkar Nagar is similar to that of Rajalakshmi’s house. On one such morning this July, F Affsha Farveen (29), who lives in a ‘tsunami quarter’, made a phone call to school informing them her two kids will not attend school.
While she was on the call, a big patch of her house’s ceiling fell on her head and her 55-year-old mother-in-law’s legs, who was lying on the floor. While Farveen received seven stitches on her head, her mother-in-law got 19 stitches on her calf in the right leg.
“I couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened to my kids if they were beside me when the roof fell,” said Farveen. Last year, an old woman, residing at New Nambiyar Nagar, was fortunate to escape when the roof of her house collapsed. In a similar incident last year, a two-year-old child lost his life when the roof of his house in Sellur village collapsed.
These are just a few of the total incidents reported. A senior district official confirmed that out of the 9,000 ‘tsunami houses’ built in Nagapattinam, 6,000 are damaged, and 3,000 among are severely damaged. “The tsunami quarters in urban pockets are in worse conditions.
Mobility is difficult for the people living in the tsunami quarters in urban areas compared to rural areas, given the living cost differences,” said K Venkadesan, town secretary of CPI(M). Despite living in these houses that bring nightmares every day, people like Farveen and Rajalakshmi cannot move elsewhere or renovate their houses due to their economic status.
Most of the people living in the tsunami quarters belong to minority communities and Dalits, with few families engaged in fishing and others as daily labourers and sanitation workers. The 60-year-old mother of Rajalakshmi is a sanitary worker who merely earns Rs 400 a day, and her father is a daily labourer.
“I live here with my parents and kids. My husband is a drunkard. We can’t afford anything but to survive another day,” said Rajalakshmi. The condition of the houses is deteriorating day by day. “Every year, we face similar accidents, and we have submitted multiple petitions, but still, we have not received any relief.
Things are getting worse each year. The risk is high, especially during the monsoon season,” said R Pasupathi Sakya, district coordinator of TMBSP, who lives in Ambedkar Nagar. “Several rural development schemes have been implemented to repair and renovate tsunami houses in rural pockets, and proposals have been sent from the district administration to the government recently regarding repair works for the tsunami houses in urban areas,” said J Mohamed Shanavas, Nagapattinam MLA, adding that he raised the issue with the Deputy CM of TN. Speaking to TNIE, a senior district official said,
“Roughly 3000 tsunami houses in the rural pockets have been allotted funds to reconstruct the roof of their houses. While the rural tsunami houses get relief, damaged houses in the urban pockets are yet to get approval and , which may take months.”