When the reporters descended and the year-old pictures flooded back into people's psyche, it was hard not to liken the media coverage of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami to a wave, but of a different kind. The saturation of news was evident. Report after report based in the worst hit regions of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and India, recounted events from that December day when coastline communities were ravaged past recognition.

No one forgot those original images of waves crashing to shore, or how the news progressively spiraled from bad to worse to unimaginable days after the earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered the deluge. The estimated number of dead ran as high as 275,000 in 13 countries, and survivors in need of emergency aid topped over five million, sparking an international response of epic proportions.

So on the first anniversary of the tsunami waves, the journalists descended and - backed by compelling visuals of the affected regions - laid out new details on the ensuing recovery, voicing over pictures of the progress.

During the remembrance, there was often praise of the survivors and the myriad of organizations coming to their aid, but a bigger, more engaging story had surfaced around recovery. Criticism was building. So much criticism, in fact, a steady stream flowed from international media about the slow pace of reconstruction.

"Throughout the tsunami zone, the lack of permanent housing remains a major problem, as does graft, confusion and incompetence surrounding the spending of billions of dollars on reconstruction," wrote Mark Magnier of the Los Angeles Times December 26.

With global pledges now surpassing $13.6 billion and counting, questions mount over how much of that money has been allocated to help the almost 2 million people left homeless by the disaster. The LATimes went on to report that Britain's aid agency Oxfam estimated only 20 per cent of those displaced moved to permanent housing -- a fact that sounded as bad as it must have looked for people struggling months on end without proper shelter.

It's about building entire communities

It was as if Toronto urban planner and architect, John Van Nostrand, predicted the world reaction when he told WORD last November: "The international response to global disasters like this paint a global layer over everything and sometimes that doesn't let the local situation shine through."

Van Nostrand has been working in Indonesia's Banda Aceh province and Simeulue, an island northwest of Sumatra. He had described the local scene where he and his CARE Indonesia team managed to erect up to 8,000 homes in Aceh, amid confusion he didn't deny existed.

"It's important for the press to keep it in perspective," said Van Nostrand in November. "It will be a process of two to three years and that's only the beginning. People then have to build permanent, safe homes.

"It's comparable to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, a city in a developed country, in terms of the disorganization, the politics, the mayhem, getting a consensus among the different funding agencies on what should be happening, and the psychosocial aspect of rebuilding, " said the president of The Planning Alliance, which was commissioned by CARE Canada.

"People think it will all be resolved in one year, but that's ridiculous," he added.

Van Nostrand's credentials include specialization in Canadian urban history, waterfront revitalization and community development. Over 27 years, that expertise has traveled a long way to the developing landscapes of African countries such as Burkino Faso, Angola, Ghana and Guinea, and even Eastern Europe. Lessons learned there were sometimes brought back home and applied accordingly. In Canada, the Planning Alliance works in large cities with low-income neighborhoods.

Van Nostrand recognized rebuilding neighborhoods in Aceh would require extensive planning with the Indonesian and local governments; the urban planner explained that feat required more than simply building homes.

"The Banda contractors, many of them drowned. The city councillors, many of them drowned, " he said. "We have to build a whole new city base."

Restoring water and sanitation systems for now

Today the planning of post-tsunami reconstruction continues. Compared to the much-needed housing, clean water provision doesn't often carry as much weight in media reports. But the restoration of water and sanitation systems is one crucial component to proper housing.

The majority of displaced survivors are still languishing in tent and camp shelters, transitional homes or group facilities. That means unfettered access to clean drinking water and private sanitation facilities remain at the moment a pipe dream.

Water projects are getting completed but like housing the planning process takes time. Infrastructures are complicated to build when resources - human and material - are not readily available. A main road washed out by the waves means materials such as pipes for water systems must travel a new route. Sometimes that route has yet to be built.

Still, the reports sound impressive. For example, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement - the largest volunteer-based, non-governmental organization (NGO) in the world - reported mid-January it had set up two mobile water treatment plants in the Aceh Besar district, bordering Banda Aceh. Provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the tanks were established for people in tent and barrack camps.

The water and sanitation team also started its household latrine project on the eastern coast of Aceh. On Nias Island, west of Sumatra, the volunteer organization constructed four blocks of latrines, two bathing stations and a septic tank.

Respecting privacy with little space

Reports aside, Indonesian practice dictates that most organizations should be looking at water and latrine usage in a different light. CARE International's water and sanitation technical advisor, Pat Lyons, admits to being schooled on the delicacies of people's needs and preferences.

"From the sanitation end, the NGO community here has learned communal latrine facilities had to be built well with a sense of privacy for people to use them," says Lyons, a Canadian working in Aceh since March of last year. That reality poses a challenge in the temporary shelters. In one camp, Lyons describes how 300-400 people are living in a space the size of a soccer field. There, CARE constructed 50-60 toilets (squat toilets based in concrete using water for flushing). "It's tight quarters," remarks Lyons.

While the Indonesian population in tsunami affected regions was initially spared from an epidemic of water-borne diseases, Lyons maintains in cramped communal spaces the threat of disease has not dwindled into obscurity. "There is still a risk. There is still concern."

CARE has worked in Indonesia since 1967, but Lyons says right now, rebuilding infrastructure is not within its mandate. "We're focused on the internally displaced people (IDPs) returning to their villages and providing water for houses that are being built," he explains from his taxi ride heading to the airport, where he'll fly the 3 1/2 hours to Jakarta.

After the tsunami hit, not only the houses went says this water and sanitation advisor. "The shallow wells were destroyed. The municipal water system, most of the pipelines were broken and ceased to function because of the earthquake's damage. All these people who relied on shallow wells, that was wiped out."

To date CARE has improved water supply conditions for about 100,000 people in Aceh, Besar Aceh and on the island of Simeulue by building latrines, cleaning, repairing and drilling wells (also known as bore holes at a cost of 10,000 to $15,000USD). The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has supported CARE Canada's post-tsunami work in Aceh with close to $4.3millionUSD.

"There has been a lot of emphasis on housing. But for water and sanitation to be done right, water resources need to be assessed and proper sources need to be protected in order to supply water and make it sustainable," says Lyons. "Back in August the focus was getting water to people by any means necessary but for the long-term, it must be thought out."

Protecting an environment that saves lives

When a magnitude 9 earthquake rocks the earth's core - as was the case in 2004 - there is widespread and long-standing damage. On the day of the Boxing Day catastrophe, the quake caused the seafloor to rupture along the fault line north of its epicenter, displacing hundreds of cubic kilometers of water, which led to the series of massive waves. Within 15 minutes those waves engulfed coastlines in Sumatra, then Thailand in 90 minutes, Sri Lanka in two hours and even as far as Somalia and Kenya, East Africa in about 7 hours.

In its report on Indonesia, CARE Canada outlined how sea water contaminated rice fields, wells and sources of drinking water and destroyed sewage and septic systems. Establishing temporary recovery systems proved to be only the first phase of reconstruction. Long-term assessments of rebuilding and its impact on the environment became paramount.

Vancouver-based Hatfield Consultants won a contract in partnership with CARE Canada to do just that in Sumatra: assess the environment to ensure CARE's work won't hinder a region's sustainable development. With about 500 NGOs and aid agencies bumping heads and stepping on toes in Indonesia alone, someone had to measure the long-term effects of their work. Hatfield Consultants was one of many.

"Why just rebuild everything as it was before if there's a better way to do it?" asks Grant Bruce, the vice president of the consulting firm. A group of senior consultants is working with Bapaldalda, the Department of the Environment for the Government of Indonesia, which created the administrative framework for its guest organizations.

"It's a bit more complicated though," says Bruce, adding the government shouldn't have to carry the entire burden of coordination. In explaining organizational myopia, Bruce uses fish stocks as an example. "A massive effort to replace lost fishing vessels comes down to proper planning."

Something as simple as providing too many boats contributes to over-fishing of exploited stocks -- a problem already encountered in Sumatra, where a few aid organizations supplied about 2,800 extra vessels to fishermen.

The United Nations Environmental Programme recently addressed these challenges of meeting the rebuilding demands without contributing to damage of the environment. In a November report, there were dire warnings that haphazard groundwater extraction, unsanitary disposal of waste, chaotic rebuilding of homes and unsustainable timber harvesting could result in more loss of the environment. Such damage would increase poverty and make regions more susceptible to greater future disasters.

"The biggest long-term challenge of the tsunami recovery is trying to really coordinate the construction and rehabilitation efforts," says Bruce.

"There was a huge international effort to rebuild. There's a lot of construction, but if it's not managed the proper way, there will be a lot of problems with sustainability in the long term."

Produced with the support of the Canadian International Developlment Agency (CIDA).

In Part 3, the final feature of the post-tsunami recovery series: exploring donor fatigue.