50 dead, 6000 homeless, infrastructure destroyed

Evan Wasuka

Sleeping under the tents... the victims of the tsunami.

For the people of the Pacific, cyclones pose the main danger of island life. But on April 2 another natural phenomenon of dire proportions struck the north western Solomons giving islanders a stark reminder of the ever constant danger of life in the Ring of Fire.

At 7.40am local time an earthquake with a magnitude of  8.1 on the Richter scale struck 345 kilometres northwest of Honiara, devastating coastal communities in the Western and Choiseul Provinces killing some 50 people, mostly children, and displacing 6000 to cause the biggest natural disaster ever to hit the Solomon Islands.

The northwestern Solomons which sits on the Ring of Fire has experienced earthquakes in the past but none in this magnitude, say residents.

The damage to infrastructure has been significant. A preliminary assessment by the Asian Development Bank reported the destruction of 34 bridges, damage to countless wharves and the need to replace 30 kilometres of road.

The final assessment on the financial cost has yet to be completed but the human price of the earthquake and tsunami has been immense.

Thirteen villages, police say, were completely washed out to sea as the waves struck.

Homeless after the disaster.

The town of Gizo, a popular international dive spot and the centre of Solomon Islands’ tourism, was the major urban centre to feel the wrath of the tsunami where the earthquake terrified residents and followed 15 minutes later by an even more terrifying wall of water of up to three metres, whose backwash sucked people and building structures out to sea.

Shane Kennedy, owner of Gizo town’s largest hotel, the appropriately named Gizo Hotel, near the town’s waterfront, says his staff were warned by police minutes before the wave smashed ashore.

“Thank God, none of the staff was injured,” said Kennedy.

But not so lucky were the Gilbertese villages of Titiana and Niumanda, not far from Gizo town. Here the low flat lying settlements and their closely constructed thatched houses proved to be a killing ground.

Twenty died, mostly children, killed as the waves swept through plucking thatched houses and everything in the way—leaving behind only the stilt foundations.

Those who weren’t killed when they were washed out to sea died as they were pummeled by the rubbish, debris and housing materials the wave picked up.

Two weeks later and the badly decomposed bodies of some of the young children were still being discovered under piles of rubble left behind by the wave, often not far from their family homes.

Although the final death toll was nowhere near the vicinity of Indonesia’s Boxing Day Tsunami, some villagers say the death toll would have been higher had it not been for the school holidays, with the waves striking at a time when students would have been on their way to school.

For the Marine Search and Rescue unit, the hope of finding those reported missing was slim.

With the waves smashing their way on land before sweeping back out to sea, authorities didn’t know if those reported missing were on land or at sea.

“We didn’t have any exact position,” said Marine Search and Rescue director Jack Bana, who’s responsible for the transportation of relief supplies to the devastated areas.

For the tsunami and earthquake survivors, the terrifying ordeal was far from over with over 40 aftershocks recorded and the constant fear of another tsunami .

For the relief workers, their major problem early on was the lack of information on the extent of the damage.

The disaster was unlike any other the National Disaster Council had experienced covering the coastal areas of the Western and Choiseul provinces.

Relief workers in the first days of the devastation had to rely on radio wireless operators in villages to transmit information to the Vavaiya Ridge Headquarters in Honiara.

With the National Disaster Management Office’s network of councils set up in the provincial areas throughout the country, information over the first few days filtered in.

Supplies were initially dispatched on two patrol boats early on but it was three days later that the first relief boat left  Honiara with food, medicine and tents for the shelter camps set up atop Gizo Town hilltop area.

This included a temporary hospital camp set up on the hills after the tsunami inundated Gizo Hospital.

With hundreds of survivors living together in camps, health authorities were concerned about an outbreak of dysentery and over 100 local health workers were dispatched to the hard hit areas, not counting medical support from overseas donors.

And the main part of allaying this potential death threat was to educate survivors on the need for good sanitation.

As for food, the premiers of Western Province and Choiseul hit out at aid workers saying they were too slow to get to those affected. In the end, it took over a week for relief supplies to reach areas affected.

As the days went by, relief operation went into full swing.

What we’re looking at now is the recovery phase, said Loti Yates, director of the National Disaster Management Office.

“We need to go down to the community level and see what is needed to get their lives back to normal.

“See if they need to get their water supplies fixed or houses rebuilt.”

Solomons’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said most food gardens were damaged and what was needed urgently were tools to help survivors rebuild their lives.

Julian Makaa, of the disaster management office, said relief food supplies were geared to last three weeks before people could return to their normal food sources.

FEELING OF SECURITY In island communities, food gardens are located in fertile lands higher from the saline coastal areas and tsunami hit coastal plains.

“We need to get the feeling of security back and return peoples’ lives to normalcy,” said Sogavare.

But returning peoples’ lives back to their daily patterns would not be an easy act to achieve with the destruction of all health centres and schools in affected areas.

Education Minister Dr Derrick Sikua said rebuilding schools would take up to six months with schools in the interim relying on UNICEF’s school out of a box aid package.

The government also stepped in ordering education authorities to accept transfers from damaged schools for students in their exam year.

Sikua said parents in the meantime were made exempt from paying school fees. As a long-term solution, the government would resettle communities  on low lying coastal areas.

The Prime Minister said the government would also be considering resettling inhabitants of the country’s small low-lying islands and coastal areas prone to natural disasters.

“Right now, a lot of small low-lying islands in the country are basically sitting in the dark waiting for trouble to happen,” he said.

In the death and destruction, the earthquake and tsunami did create some tales of human courage such as neighbours and families saving their friends from drowning.

A young boy who survived being buried alive after a landslide caused by the earthquake was later found by villagers three hours later under a pile of rubble.

There were also amazing natural phenomena like Ranogga Island being pushed several metres up.

Reports from the island say the earthquake had pushed the landmass in some areas up by 10 metres. Residents early had complained that the sea level had receded and without realising the land had risen.

Coral, that was once below sea level, was now no longer with fish and underwater marine life dead and rotting.

As for other amazing feats, the tsunami and earthquake put a dead stop to a diplomatic spat between Australia and the Solomon Islands, that has plagued the Sogavare regime since day one.

Australia was among the first donors to participate and provide its logistics and military service. The Regional Assistance Mission and Participating Police Force deployed all their resources to tsunami hit areas.

All in all, says Makaa, the total donations tally up to over S$6 million from local and overseas sources.

As for the future, the government has made a formal request to the Asian Development Bank to coordinate the recovery process.

Although the economic impact of the disaster is yet to be determined, the damage to infrastructure in Gizo Town is expected to have a long-term impact on the tourism industry, still recovering from the ethnic tension of 2000.