ABSTRACT
A woman living in the Mandanai settlement near Thirukkovil lost all four of her children, and two years later, her husband died after he started drinking alcohol more heavily after the tsunami. An independent, Colombo-based aid worker, Myrna Setunga, told the researchers that she worked very hard in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami to get ‘family packs’ to women and children living in temporary shelters. Relief workers need to be particularly sensitive to the kinds of traumas suffered by mothers and children in a disaster and perhaps there needs to be more training in understanding the impact of trauma on children and the kinds of behaviour ‘disorders’ that can linger for a long time after the initial trauma. Inadequate processes for assessing the needs exacerbated some of the pre-existing tensions and divisions in all the case study communities and, of course, this made the task of rebuilding viable and cohesive communities much more difficult.
