Sanjeev Ramachandran / Colachel July 09, 2008, 0:15 IST Coca-Cola recently handed over 41 houses to Tsunami survivors in this part of South India. This gesture was not an isolated one. It has been followed by two other projects providing livelihood to thousands of fishermen in tsunami-hit zones. These measures come amidst poor public opinion of the company in the area after the prolonged battle that the panchayat in Plachimada in Kerala fought with it over contamination of ground water by factory effluents.

Scientists have predicted more destruction and calamity in India if it is hit by another tsunami. The reason: India's natural barriers against tsunami have been badly damaged in the 2004 tsunami and it will take more than a decade for them to heal. Scientists in a recent study warned that mangroves, coral reefs, tidal inlets and saline area forests of the country, which act as natural barrier against tsunami, have been so badly damaged that if the country is hit by another tsunami, its impact will be more catastrophic.

The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) is trying to convince army-ruled Myanmar not to place at least 2,000 youngsters orphaned by this month's cyclone into state-run homes, a senior official said on Monday. "We should try and place children within family environments as a priority, and not in institutions," Anne-Claire Dufay, UNICEF's child protection chief in the former Burma, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Asia's worst natural disasters since 2004 tsunami Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled China's Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating quake which killed nearly 32,500, state news agency Xinhua said. Early on Sunday, another 6.1 magnitude tremor caused thousands to flee as buildings swayed in the provincial capital, Chengdu. Here are some of the region's worst natural disasters since the Asian tsunami of 2004.

With a parliamentary panel finding misutilisation and diversion of tsunami relief funds, an empowered group of ministers (e-GOM) headed by union home minister Shivraj Patil has undertaken a review of the Rs 10,000 crore rehabilitation scheme. Since 2008-09 is the deadline for implementation of the rehabilitation scheme, the e-GoM issued a directive to the affected states and union territories that the work should be expedited to complete the task within the stipulated time.