MIRZAGANJ, May 7 (AlertNet) - Rabeya Khatum lost her two children and her home in a tidal surge whipped up by Cyclone Sidr along the Bangladesh coast a year and a half ago.

Sitting on the floor under the tarpaulin of her makeshift shelter in Mirzaganj, Patuakhali district, the 30-year-old mother cradles her newborn son in her lap and says she's tried to rebuild her life since the November 2007 disaster. But her biggest challenge has been getting access to decent shelter.

Rabeya and her husband are just one of hundreds of families still suffering in the aftermath of the storm. They live out in the open with just a plastic sheet or piece of corrugated iron to protect them from the scorching sun and heavy monsoon rains.

"My husband is a daily labourer and earns 200 taka ($3) a day," says Rabeya, looking down at the baby wrapped in a cloth in her lap. "Somehow we are managing to eat, but we really need a home."

Despite efforts by the government and aid agencies to rebuild homes for hundreds of thousands affected by the disaster, more than 23,000 families remain homeless 18 months on, according to Bangladesh's Directorate of Relief and Rehabilitation (DRR).

"We are trying our best but sometimes it is just beyond the capacity of government and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) to provide everyone with a home," says DRR Director General Fazlul Haque.

POOR AND LANDLESS HIT HARD

Almost 3,500 people were killed when the category 4 cyclone smashed into Bangladesh's coastal belt on November 15, 2007.

The storm, packing winds of up to 240 kph, brought 5-metre high tidal surges from the numerous rivers that carve their way through the low-lying nation, inundating villages and destroying the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen.

More than 2 million families either lost their dwellings or sustained significant damage to their homes and livelihoods.

The authorities put the financial cost of the disaster at over $1.7 billion - half of this in the housing sector.

The hardest-hit districts were Bagherat, Barguna, Patuakhali, Pirojpur, Jhalakhati and Barisal, areas with both a high population density and some of the country's highest poverty rates.

According to a November 2008 report from Oxfam, donors and government have offered to help about 80,000 households rebuild their homes in a way that makes them more resilient to hazards like flooding.

"Even this minimalist approach leaves a gap of 276,278 families - approximately 1.38 million women, men and children - who were judged unable to rebuild adequate homes but who will still not receive official shelter support," noted the report.

Aid workers say many of those without homes are landless people who have received little assistance even though they are among the most vulnerable groups in the country.

"Many landless people lived on state land for decades, but they didn't have any official papers to prove this when their homes were destroyed," explains one aid worker who was involved in identifying people for shelter support in the aftermath of the disaster. "So because they had no land, no one could give them a house."

SOARING DEBTS

Although many received compensation of around 7,000 taka ($100), they say it wasn't enough to buy land, and by the time they'd saved or borrowed enough funds to acquire a plot, housing relief was no longer available.

To make matters worse, community leaders say homeless families - already laden with debt before the disaster - were forced to borrow even more funds from some NGOs offering unscrupulous loans at interest rates as high as 30 percent.

"Some people borrowed money for homes, others to buy new fishing boats which were destroyed in the cyclone," says Mohammad Moniruzzaman, a community leader in Amua village in Jhalakathi district.

"They are already struggling to repay these loans which are at such high rates, but these people are not to blame as they were lured by lenders when they were in their most vulnerable state."

Authorities are planning to construct 1,000 barrack-style homes to house 10,000 landless people. But aid groups say the government needs to be more proactive in seeking out landless families and allocating them suitable land before another disaster strikes.

Many villagers, feeling disillusioned and neglected by the authorities and the aid community, have built their makeshift houses in the same spot the cyclone struck, despite knowing the site is highly susceptible to tropical storms.

Somed Mistri, 70, was a carpenter before the cyclone but no longer works after sustaining injuries to his waist in the disaster.

The elderly man, who had a decent home before Sidr, now lives in a corrugated iron shack with his wife on the banks of the Halta River in Jhalakathi, exactly where his previous home was destroyed by the tidal surge.

Like many others, he says he has nowhere else to go and his dream of rebuilding his home is fading fast.

"What can I say? It feels bad," says Somed, pulling open the corrugated iron door of his shack to reveal a tiny room furnished only with a broken bed. "If another cyclone comes, only God will be able to save me."

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