Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
short time in order to provide effective recovery processes. It can be seen for this
specifi c case study that the continuation of the long term support to the affected
communities and the participation of the victims in the restoration and reconstruc-
tion processes are also very important in order to help the victims restore their
lives and to avoid any social problems that may occur in the affected communities
in the future.
Keywords Tsunami ￿ Restoration process ￿ Coastal communities ￿ Ranong ￿
Thailand
6.1
Introduction
The tsunami occurred from the M w 9.15 Sumatra earthquake (Chlieh et al. 2007 ) on
December 26 th , 2004 caused widespread damages along the coastlines of Thailand
at different degrees, from minor damages to completely devastation with estimated
casualties of over 5,000 s and the economic loss between 50,000 s and 60,000 s
million baht (i.e. DDPM 2005 ; Kittiampon 2005 and The Center for Economic and
Business Forecasting of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce 2005 ).
Since then, most communities have been gradually recovered from this disaster
through various restoration processes. In Ranong province, the tsunami affected 45
local villages (a community that is considered the offi cial smallest administrative
division of Thailand) in four districts and killed 161 people that included both resi-
dents and tourists (Navachinda 2005 and MCOT 2013 ).
After the tsunami, various studies have been done in many aspects regarding the
effects of the tsunami and some restoration processes and tsunami hazard manage-
ments in Thailand. Unfortunately most of these studies concentrated on the land-
mark areas or famous tourist locations that were easy to gain access and were
internationally well known to the world (i.e. Choowong et al. 2009 ; Larsen et al.
2011 ; Malain et al. 2012 ). In fact these studies may not refl ect the real situations for
the majority of the affected communities in Thailand of which most of them were
just small communities such as relatively small local villages that were less known
to the world. Therefore the aim of this study is to present the impacts of the tsunami
and various post-disaster recoveries in two adjacent small local villages: the Nua
village and the Hat Sai Khao village in Ranong province in the southern Thailand
for a case study that can refl ect the post-disaster situation of typical small local
villages in the southern Thailand that were affected by the tsunami. The damage
assessment and the post-disaster recovery of these villages are compared with those
of the Kasetsart University's Andaman Coastal Research Station for Development,
one of the government academic institutes, that is located nearby and received the
same degree of violence from the tsunami waves, as an example for a comparison
of the effects and the restoration processes between local communities and the
governmental supported institution. In addition, the current situations of these
communities are discussed in term of both physical and social aspects.
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