Environmental Impacts of Tsunami and it’s Rehabilitation

Abstract

Tsunami, the Killer Wave swept nearly two thirds of the coast of Sri Lanka on 26th of December, 2004. The coastline especially the Eastern and the South Western suffered a major blow, rendering more than 40,000 dead, about 900,000 displaced. Most of the physical infrastructure including houses, hotels, and common facilities like railway, roads, buses, bridges, power and telecommunications were damaged. Many people living on the shoreline and adjacent areas lost their livelihoods. <br><br> There was severe damage in near shore areas, including seashore Pandanus and creeper vegetation and inland Palmyrah trees with near shore coconuts less affected, as were inland economic trees. Casuarina plantations proved vulnerable to tsunami damage and by themselves had little protective value, though in place they helped stabilize sand dunes which themselves moderated the Tsunami. Alien invasive species have been spread by the Tsunami to new areas. The paper also lists recommendations for minimizing the environmental damage in the tsunami rehabilitation programme.