Six weeks after Cyclone Nargis battered Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Delta, scores of survivors are still without adequate protective emergency shelter and exposed to the heavy monsoon rains, adding to their risk of disease.
Many survivors have tried to create protective shelter for themselves using traditional natural materials, such as palm fronds, several aid workers, who had travelled around the stricken delta, told IRIN. These improvised shelters, they said, were not waterproof, however.
"Six weeks on, there are still people who do not have a roof over their head," said John Sparrow, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), who has just returned from the delta.
"There are lots of people who have put up temporary shelter, but it leaves them still in great need. They are resilient, and they are doing the best they can for themselves, but it isn't enough."
To date, aid agencies have been distributing protective tarpaulins, but the effort has been hampered by a shortage of materials, exacerbated by the demand for similar emergency material for survivors of the Sichuan earthquake in neighbouring China.
Agencies have also faced logistical difficulties moving the tarpaulins into affected areas and into the hands of survivors.
The IFRC estimated last week that only 22 percent of those in need had obtained any shelter materials from international agencies.
And while distribution was now accelerating, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated another 500,000 tarpaulins were still needed.
On 13 June, OCHA estimated that just 160,000 households had received some form of emergency shelter, typically plastic sheeting material.
However, Graham Eastmond, a Bangkok-based coordinator with the Emergency Shelter Cluster, a coordinating group of UN agencies and NGOs, told IRIN more tarpaulins were on the way.
Already the US Department of Defense has ordered around 125,000, which will be available in Myanmar for distribution from 19 June, while another 110,000 for the IFRC were also en route.
Most of those who had received tarpaulins, though, still needed household kits that would include mosquito nets, blankets and other implements, Eastmond said.
Cyclone Nargis, and the accompanying tidal surge, left an estimated 133,000 people dead or missing when it struck on 2 and 3 May, leaving some 2.4 million people destitute.
 Photo: Contributor/IRIN  |
| A resident points at her former house in the town of Kenna So Kyaung in the delta region. Many survivors are still without adequate protective emergency shelter |
Aid agencies still do not know exactly how many homes were seriously damaged or totally destroyed in the disaster but they are carrying out a detailed damage assessment, due to be completed by 24 June.
The initiative involves more than 250 people from UN agencies, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), World Bank, Asian Development Bank, IFRC, and 18 Myanmar government ministries, and will carry out detailed field assessments in the 30 worst-affected townships.
"We are struggling generally in terms of information flow," Eastmond told IRIN, adding that the assessment would assist enormously in allowing aid agencies to better respond.
For now, the Emergency Shelter Cluster estimates that around 480,000 families in the affected area have lost their shelter, though it cautions that this is a very rough, preliminary figure.
Tens of thousands of survivors have returned to their villages from temporary settlements, and a 9 June report from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported "extremely poor" conditions for returnees in some villages visited by its field teams in badly affected Labutta, and said more tarps were urgently needed.
 Photo: International Federation |
| A pregnant woman and children are among those who are more vulnerable at this packed temporary shelter in Yangon |
Another aid worker said tarp recipients mainly use them to waterproof structures they have built themselves from natural materials.
"When they get them, they say 'thanks – now we will really sleep well tonight'," she said.
Yet even as tarp distribution accelerates, Eastmond said agencies were beginning to discuss how best to meet long-term shelter needs. Teams are carrying out detailed surveys of building materials available in local markets, and of skilled workers who can help with the task of home-building.
"The next step is early recovery – providing inputs to help people rebuild their houses. We should be looking at what is the best way of doing that, what a standard kit of assistance would consist of, with the aim of producing an adequate shelter for a family. There is a lot of work to be done," he said.
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
