Disaster relief operations in andhra pradesh, southern India, following the cyclone in november 1977.

In August 1978 a seminar was held in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, that brought together many of the agencies that had worked in the disaster, so that they could share their experiences and make recommendations for the future. The first part of this article is a brief description and summary of the findings of the seminar, the second describes the evolution of ARTIC and housing provision after the disaster and the last part attempts to place them within the context of current Indian realities. The seminar was organised very efficiently by the Appropriate Re-construction Training and Information Centre (ARTIC), a group financed by OXFAM and formed a few weeks after the cyclone. This is the first time a seminar of this nature has been held after a disaster. The report that ARTIC produced as a result is called the ‘Problems and lessons from the Andhra Pradesh cyclone’, and can be obtained from them at Seshagirirao St, Maruthinigar, Vijayawada 520004, A.P. India, price 20 rupees. For three days 75 delegates from over 40 relief organisations discussed the events that followed the cyclone. They had been invited to submit papers and these were circulated but not discussed as such; instead a list of questions divided under four main headings was compiled by ARTIC. 1. Emergency shelter and housing. 2. Social aspects of relief organisation. 3. Emergency rescue and medical assistance. 4. Agricultural issues.