• Struggling for survival
• 'Washed up' fishermen turn carpenter and build their own boats
• 'Tsunami village' rises from rubble
• Inspired by Church aid, sea gypsies turn to Christ
• Foreign aid crucial
• Body ID center looks future
• Shoddy housing doesn't make a home
• Outside volunteer carves new career in housing
• Counting the costs to the environment
• Underwater tourist trails
• Turtle hatchery at risk after waves
• Where the money went
• Covered for everything but the wave
• Corporations learn that caring counts
• Starting again from scratch
• Swedish survivor gains perspective after wave 'turned my life upside-down'
• Reasons to smile
• Justice will prevail, investor believes
• Courage and resilience ease personal pain
• Help wanted
• Second chance to get it right
• Tide turns on tourist demographics in Khao Lak
• Light on the horizon
• One day at a time
• Widows and orphans left out in the cold
• Art for the heart
THE WAVE
Struggling for survival
Fishermen were among those hardest-hit by the tsunami and many have received insufficient help
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| One year after the tsunami, local fishermen still anticipate favourable tides for going back to sea. Despite abundant donated boats, many still can't go out fishing as they lack navigation equipment. |
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| Fishing piers at Ban Nam Khem come back to life. But fishermen have faced new problems, such as rising oil prices. |
The plethora of fishing boats busy plying the waters off Phuket and Phangnga may give the impression that things have returned to normal after the tsunami. But appearances belie a less comforting reality.
Fishermen, large and small-scale alike, were among those hardest-hit by the Dec 26 tsunami. A survey by the Thailand Development Research Institute estimated that around 5,800fishing boats were damaged in the six tsunami-ravaged provinces.
Even though help, in the form of donations and state compensation, has poured in, many are still struggling. The fishermen say the assistance is insufficient, and where they have been given assistance, it is not appropriate to their needs.
Owners of a small fishing boat received 66,000 baht for a missing boat. But if the boat was damaged, they were given 30,000 baht towards the repair costs. The cost of a new boat is 150,000 baht.
Owners of a deep sea fishing vessel, anything longer than 10 metres, got 200,000 baht for the loss while a new one costs three million baht. Those whose vessels were damaged were given 95,000 baht.
Fishermen complain about the low level of government compensation.
''How can I recover? My boats cost over three million baht each. But I only received 200,000 baht in compensation. The compensation covered only the new boat's down payment,'' said Amphan Chayasookkasem, formerly owner of a fleet of fishing vessels.
Once a big businesswoman with five boats, Mrs Amphan is now a vendor. Her house was destroyed. She lost three out of nine family members in the tragedy.
''Can you imagine that, how fast your life can fall apart? Before Dec 26, I was rich, successful and happy. On the morning of Dec 26, I became poor and badly indebted. Everything I had worked for for two decades was gone in 20 minutes,'' said Mrs Amphan.
Sa-ard Puangrayah, 42, said her life would never be the same.
''I once had eight deep-sea boats. Twenty minutes after the waves came, I did not even have any underwear to put on,'' Ms Sa-ard said while helping her workers pack fish into baskets.
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Wrathful sea |
Rising oil prices have aggravated the fishermen's plight.
Phensiri Jusirimongkhol, or 'Jae Wee', a well-known businesswoman in Ban Nam Khem, urged the government to supply low-cost petrol if it really wanted to help fishermen in Ban Nam Khem get back on track.
She said owners of deep-sea boats were unfairly left out by the government and donors. ''They thought we were already rich because we had bigger boats. But the bigger you are, the larger the wound is,'' said Ms Phensiri, who once had 10 vessels and her own private pier. Now she is left with one vessel and huge debts. Last month, she faced charges of illegally building a pier on a public beach.
Small-scale fishermen, the group considered to have received more help, suffered in their own way.
A year after the tragedy, 'Kai' or Chuchart Rattana, a 36-year-old fisherman, has still not received a boat. He was told that he turned up too late for help and that the donated boats had all been claimed. He complained that many fishermen simply over-claimed and received excessive compensation. ''I was late because I spent weeks trying to find my wife. At that time, how could I find time for anything else?'' he said. His wife was drowned in the waves.
Some small-scale fishermen who got donated boats could not go back to sea as the necessary fishing equipment, sonar and radar devices for locating fish and underwater rocks, and short-wave radios, were not provided. All complement of such equipment costs around 100,000 baht.
Maitree Chongkraichak, a councillor of Bang Muang Tambon Local Administration, said the authorities refused to help with the necessary equipment.
''Provincial officials told me that small-scale fishing is a traditional practice which does not require help from technology,'' he said.
Apart from loss of life and property, fishermen said they now face problems caused by environmental changes.
In Ban Nam Khem, the tsunami also wiped out a one-kilometre sand bar in front of the Ban Nam Khem deep-sea piers. The sand bar served as a breakwater to shield the piers against choppy waves. Now the sand bar has gone there is no natural harbour, and no place for the deep-sea boats to dock.
Also gone with the waves was Koh Pah, a tiny island near Ban Nam Khem village, which served as a safe haven for small fishing boats. Without it, small boats have lost a vital place to ride out storms.
Chukiet Ngern-anek, an owner of deep-sea -boats in Phuket, said he worried that the tsunami had changed underwater geography for good.
The waves also destroyed spawning grounds, such as coral reefs, mangrove forests and the seabed. The only good news was that fish stocks had not been depleted as had at first been feared. Three months after the tsunami, deep-sea fishing boats were returning to shore loaded with fish. The fish catch was even higher than that of the same period in the preceding year.
''Fish came back to the sea as if the tsunami had pulled them out of their bedroom,'' exclaimed Mr Chukiet.
But now, deep-sea boats are finding fewer fish and fishermen are beginning to worry again about depletion. ''Rising oil prices are acceptable because the market will eventually adjust to them. But if the sea environment has changed for good, we will be in deep, deep trouble,'' said Mr Chukiet.
Praorai Nujmorn, director of the Andaman Sea Fisheries Research and Development Centre -under the Fisheries Department, sought to allay the fishermen's concerns about the tsunami's effect on fish stocks, saying the marine ecology had recovered well.
''The sea's condition is still good. Coral reefs are less damaged than we previously thought. Our beaches are gradually improving,'' she said in a phone interview.
''We are lucky when compared to Aceh [the hardest hit area, located in Indonesia],'' she said. ''Many beaches and the seabed at Aceh are still blanketed by sediment as thick as 30cm - three times more than we have.''
The number of fishing boats has increased, she said. Many fishermen she knows had been well compensated for losses.
''It is good that the villagers got help. But there are too many boats for the limited amount of natural resources. If there are too many fishermen at sea, we will have a major problem caused by over-fishing,'' she said.
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