Managing the Impact of Disaster

While evacuation behaviour and shelter choice have been extensively studied in developed countries, very limited research exists on the challenges faced by disaster survivors from developing countries. This is especially critical in countries where there is an absence of pre-designated shelters, lack of staging capacities and most importantly an inability of public sector entities to manage catastrophic events, independent of local and international non-profit organizations. This article aims to fill this gap by investigating on evacuation, decision-making and shelter choice in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. We present our findings from a survey of 1,000 randomly selected households from 15 villages and one urban settlement in the Nagapattinam District (Tamil Nadu, India). Our research suggests that approximately 79.6 per cent of displaced households selected permanent public buildings and religious or community buildings as their first choice of shelter. Our analysis suggests that these decisions were affected by the severity of damage to homes, whether families were separated while evacuating and taking shelter, and their socioeconomic characteristics.