'Response of Tsunami Victims to Post Disaster Reconstruction Efforts: A Study of Crucial Factors Affecting the Behavior of Tsunami victims'

Abstract

The Tsunami resulted from an earthquake in Sumatra Island on 26th. of December 2004 was the history's most unforgettable hit that ever had that washed away around 31000 people in the costal belt of Sri Lanka within few minutes. The whole restructuring process after the miserable hit of Tsunami was moving at a very slow pace. One of the major challenges that the country had faced is to intensify the bottom level participation in the recent construction process. Since the responses of Tsunami affected people became more critical in expediting the reconstruction process, it was of high importance to identify the behavior of Tsunami affected people and the causes to such behavior, and eventually, this knowledge will greatly impact on the implementation of a proper disaster management strategies and tactics focused on reconstruction. This paper focused on studying behavior of Tsunami victims in Kalutara District in terms of four explaining behavior types: initiating, hard work, cooperative and economic behaviors at the stages of disaster management life cycle: disaster situation, life support, recovery, and development. For the study, ten groups of camp mates each including more than 10 camp mates were selected. In-depth interviews were conducted with these groups to collect data on independent variable that is 'causes to behavior'. And, questionnaire method was adopted to collect data on dependent variable-' behavior' from thirty camp mates in the selected ten groups. Data analysis was based more on qualitative analytical techniques such as data patterns and trend analysis and percentage analysis. It was found that people's major behavior and explaining behaviors were dependent and it was caused by their attitudes towards external reliance and values towards short term orientation and uncertainty avoidance. Further analysis found that social and psychological factors play an intervening role in determining the behavior of people. Finally, the research also sets some directions with respect to the policy decisions and plan implementations regarding natural disaster management in preparation of future such circumstances considering the dependency syndrome of people and causes of them with the identification of major Sri I _ankan cultural assumptions, especially in the costal belt of the country.