Fire guts India tsunami shelters

Several hundred tsunami survivors in southern India are homeless again after fire gutted their temporary shelters.

The blaze in Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu state, was started by fireworks being used to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali, officials say.

Flames ripped through 90 temporary structures, igniting roofs made of highly-combustible coconut leaves.

There are no reports of casualties and the 90 families affected have been rehoused in a local hall.

A senior local official, Ranvir Prasad, told the BBC the shelters were some of the earliest structures built after the devastating Asian tsunami last December.

'Tinderboxes'

The tsunami made thousands of families homeless along India's south-east coast. Nagapattinam was among the worst-hit, with more than 6,500 people killed.

The shelters provide very basic accommodation

Survivors in the district have been staying in cramped single-room tin shelters for nearly a year.

They have endured harsh conditions - the shelters turned into tinderboxes in the blistering summer heat and leaked during recent rains, says the BBC's Sunil Raman.

Mr Prasad said permanent structures were being built at 79 locations in Nagapattinam to house 17,500 homeless families.

He said legal issues had delayed the acquisition of land in six locations, but that 1,000 permanent houses would be ready for occupation by the end of November.