On the edge of one of Asia's most spectacular evergreen rainforests, more than 250 giant trees have been felled to make way for tsunami survivors on Little Andaman Island.
As construction workers brought from the Indian mainland erect metal and wood scaffolding, scores of local women in brightly coloured saris heave corrugated iron sheets which will serve as roofing for more than 300 dwellings.
Time is running out. The southwest monsoon will break in India's remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands later this month, and thousands of rainproof huts must be constructed before the archipelago is enveloped by blinding rain. They will be replacing tents and makeshift shelters which have become home for most of the 21,000 inhabitants of Hut Bay since the town was inundated on December 26.
'Sure, it's a race against time,' says K. Damayanti, 35. 'But unless we have proper shelters during the monsoon, we won't be able to rebuild our lives again.'
Ms Damayanti earns 150 rupees ($26) a day for her work at the construction site, twice the usual wage for labourers in Hut Bay. She is one of several tsunami victims employed by Seeds, a New Delhi-based NGO specialising in disaster management which is charged with building this particular cluster of homes.
Her gold bangles and earrings are the only valuables left from her previous life. Everything else was swept away by the tsunami - her three-room house, four cows, three goats, a TV, a radio, a kitchen mixer, all the possessions painstakingly accumulated over 15 years of hard work and thrifty living.
But her three children and husband, a government forestry employee, survived.