A jetty on the islands ripped apart by the waves of destruction

A team of six Calcuttans went on a four-day trip to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to experience the devastation first-hand and offer help. What the members saw left them without words and strengthened their will to contribute towards the rehabilitation process.

?With the rescue and relief work almost over, the next step, we thought, was rehabilitation,? said Shekhar Mehta, a Rotarian who headed the team, comprising members from Rotary International, Art of Living and social workers from the city, calling itself Together We Will.

The team ? comprising Mehta, Shamlu Dudeja, Binod Khaitan, Sandeep Nolakha, Ritika Poddar and Kavita Ajmera ? left on Monday and returned on Thursday evening, travelling throughout the islands, offering help.

?We had sent a proposal of building 500 houses to the lieutenant-governor of the islands. On reading our proposal, he felt that if we had to work for rehabilitation, we must visit the areas and see things for ourselves.?

And what the team saw was destruction and loss everywhere. ?There were thousands of trees uprooted and scattered, as if they were straw,? recalled Mehta.

?At places, there was only rubble; even the debris had been washed away and from the air, it looked like there had never been anything on the spot before. We saw a mammoth oil tanker thrown at least 500 yards away,? Mehta added.

Some of the sights were gruesome, but by now commonplace on the islands. ?We saw someone leaving a body half-burnt, while another was just covering bodies in the sand. We asked and found out that there weren?t enough people to dig graves.?

The team met some of the 15 tribal village heads of Nicobar. ?The village heads were very keen on our proposal. They had always lived in houses on stilts, but now wanted stronger structures with concrete bases and sheds.?

In Hut Bay, Little Andaman ? one of the worst affected islands ? the team managed to convince the authorities to allow it to build 50 houses. ?We will send material from here for around 200 houses and with the help of their cooperative bodies, they can do the actual construction there,? Mehta said.

Architects and supervisors from Calcutta and rest of the country will be travelling to oversee the process.

Other needs of the local residents include bicycles for the plain areas (Together We Will is trying to send ?500-1,000? bicycles in the next few days), bamboo for making housing structures, boats and fishing nets.

Rotary International has already sent around 40 tonnes of relief material by air and sea, including clothes, shelter material, food, milk, drinking water, utensils, footwear and medicines.