IRIN
MYANMAR: Emergency shelter needs still great, say aid workers
16 June 2008


BANGKOK, 16 June 2008 (IRIN) - 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.

Logistical problems

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.

Assessments still needed

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.

Sparrow said he met a mother of five children - including a 
seven-month-old baby - who had managed to erect a partial shelter. When 
asked how she protected the baby - who had already developed respiratory 
problems - from the monsoon rains, she said, "I hold him closer."

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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