When the 2004 tsunami struck, the Moken were saved by their knowledge of the sea. But a catastrophic blaze has exposed authorities’ errors in the rebuilding of their homes

Where stilted huts once stood on the white sand, now there are just charred remains. “This is worse than after the tsunami,” says Hook, a Moken sea nomad surveying the damage fire has wreaked on his former village home in Au Bon Yai bay, Surin island.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami destroyed the previous Moken settlement here on Thailand’s Andaman sea, Hook says people were able to recover some belongings. This time, when fire broke out on 3 February this year, nothing was left. Now the community fears for the future as the authorities begin to reconstruct the village in its original design, an unsafe housing model consisting of highly flammable structures, densely packed together. And it has reignited a row about the Moken’s rights to their ancestral lands.

The Moken, skilful freedivers, hunters and sea nomads, had always lived at sea, moving on to land only during the rainy season – until they were pushed ashore permanently some decades ago. The Surin community of Moken made their home on the islands many generations ago. The Moken came to the world’s attention for their survival and heroism during the 2004 tsunami and now the village, located in a national park, attracts thousands of tourists.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Moken village destroyed by fire in February 2019. Photograph: mokenislands.com

It was just after sunset on that Sunday earlier this month, the last of the tour groups had left. It had been hot for days and the huts, made from bamboo and palm leaves, were completely dried out. A strong north wind blew, as it does at this time of year. The fire, accidentally sparked in one family’s hut, engulfed the structure quickly. The layout of the village – three rows of huts packed so closely together their roofs were almost touching – enabled the flames to spread with frightening speed, like a fire spirit dancing from roof to roof, the villagers said. The homes went up like tinder. The Moken fought hard, until it became too hot to continue. It took just 30 minutes for all 61 houses on the right side of the bay to be swallowed by flames.

The timing of the fire was fortunate. Tourists had gone, and everyone was active – women washing, preparing dinner, children playing in the sand or with homemade boats in the water.

While there was no loss of life, 273 people were left homeless, their belongings gone – everything from cooking pots to clothes, work materials and tools, life savings and generations-old family heirlooms. As the fire spread towards the edge of the village, Tad helped his wife Sabai, particularly vulnerable in her blindness, escape the flames, grabbing his drum and her betel nuts as they ran. All the Moken women and children were evacuated to a campsite on a neighbouring island within Surin’s national park, but the following day, they returned to the village, preferring to sleep under the stars than canvas.

The park authorities and the Thai navy were on the scene fast. Government officials had provisions delivered from the mainland and committed financial assistance. Donations and aid arrived in the form of food, medical supplies, clothes.

Daily life is challenging. There is one water hose for the whole village. A few coal stoves are distributed for cooking. But the Moken are well practised in sharing – their language has no word for “want”, “take”, “mine”. People sleep on the beach, in the school, and share the 15 huts that the villagers saved, thanks to a space separating them from the main cluster.

The government has sent soldiers from Surathani to help reconstruct the village, before the rainy season comes at the end of March. Their time – and funding – is limited, and, in the rush to rebuild, all signs point to a quick reconstruction of the original confined layout – the same rows of small huts packed into the same tight space, built with the same flammable materials.

But the Moken have now seen exactly how dangerous this layout is. “We have large tour groups here in the dry season,” says Hook. “With the villagers and so many tourists in our small bay, we worry about this happening again, about people being injured or worse.”

Regardless, the soldiers have been digging holes, laying foundations and poles for 61 plots within the same perimeters. The size allocated for each home is impossibly small – just 3m by 6.5m. “My family houses six people,” despairs Mi Nge. “There will be just 3m by 4m inside space for my family to sleep, store our belongings, and a kitchen.” There has been consultation between provincial government, the national park and navy, but not, it appears, with the Moken. “We Moken men are well experienced in building our own houses,” points out Hook. “Why is no one asking us, how and where we want to set up our own houses?”

Ngui, Hook’s elder brother, is the head of the village. While he appreciates government assistance, he shares concern that the planned housing is unsuitable and unsafe. “They said they would show us the plan to see if it fits our needs,” he says. “No has come around to ask us, yet they already started placing the poles of the houses.” He is worried about future fire risks, and how his growing community will fit into this increasingly uninhabitable space.

The Moken know better than anyone how to organise and structure their village, safely and sustainably, in harmony with the environment. “It would be great to rebuild the wood houses with thatch roofs, but more spread out and durably constructed,” says Ngui. Ngui wants more space, and there is room to extend along the bay. But so far, the national park authorities refuse.

“It’s unlikely that we would expand any development beyond the current beach,” said Putthapoj Khuphrasit, the head of Koh Surin national park, as he surveyed the bay on 8 February. “We have to balance the needs of the community with the management of the protected environment inside of the park.”

There is another option the park won’t yet discuss – the use of a bay nearby. For generations, Moken lived between several bays on Koh Surin, including Au Bon Yai bay and Sai En bay (where they buried their ancestors) long before the park existed; these lands are, by rights, their ancestral home. The obvious solution would be to return both bays to the Moken to live in and manage. As General Surin Pikulthong, a member of the Committee for the Affairs of Indigenous Peoples, puts it: “They have been here longer than any of us … there is no law that gives the government power to dictate the lives of ethnic groups who predated the government that are living on their ancestral lands.”

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The Moken have been here before. They are a resilient and resourceful people. When the 2004 tsunami struck, they survived thanks to intimate knowledge of the sea, passed down through generations. As people around the world stared in wonder at the receding water that came before that devastating wave, Moken elders read the danger and quickly evacuated everyone – their own people, and tourists – to higher ground. Then they rescued survivors at sea. More than 230,000 people were lost in the tsunami worldwide; the Moken, who were directly in the path of the wave, lost no one. The real trauma came in the reconstruction of their homes. The national park authorities’ demands rode roughshod over Moken cultural traditions.

Normally, the animist Moken erect their huts at the edge of the beach, stilted feet in the water, living in the space between land and sea, like their mythical kin, the turtle. When they were pushed to the smaller bay, the park insisted on the current formation of small huts in regimented lines, tightly packed together (lacking important social spaces), facing each other (considered an ill omen) set back from the sea, and near the jungle (where spirits are believed to reside).

As well as cultural traditions, there was a pragmatism to the Moken’s living arrangements, their huts spaced safely apart at the waters’ edge, the lapping waves washing away small amounts of natural waste generated from each household. The layout insisted upon by the park not only disregarded important cultural traditions, it created problems with hygiene, contributed to the spread of disease. And of course, it was a huge fire hazard.

Talking to reporters on his recent visit to the decimated village, Putthapoj Khuphrasit dismissed concerns about safety, pointing – somewhat irrelevantly – to the fact that the park employs Moken people. “We provide them with breakfast and lunch,” he offered, adding: “The village elders are able to stay at home and make souvenirs to sell to tourists. They have what they need.”

Narumon Arunothai, an anthropologist from Chulalongkorn University who has worked with the Moken for decades, disagrees. “In the minds of the community this space could be used to greatly reduce the congested current layout, and ensure sufficient fire break areas to prevent further accidents.” She wants government agencies to work with the Moken. “This crisis presents an opportunity for the community to bring themselves together and develop the best way to live in a conservation area.”

The Surin Moken know and love their land better than anyone. They are highly motivated to look after it.

“I was born here, my mother and father died here,” says Misia, an elder and the Moken’s spiritual leader. “I’m worried about my children, my grandchildren, my nephews and nieces. I worry that we won’t be happy. We’ve had many people try to convince us to live on the mainland. I’ve been to the places some have asked us to resettle, but they are not on the open sea. Eventually we made our way back here to where we’ve always been.”

• Susan Smillie is the author of The Last Sea Nomads: Inside the disappearing world of the Moken, published by Guardian Shorts