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Solomon Islands since the Earthquake of 2 April 2007

An earthquake of strength 8.1 on the Richter scale occurred at 7.40am on Monday 2 April 2007, 45km south-west of Gizo in the Western Solomons. It was followed by a tsunami. Three waves spread out and caused damage a few minutes later.
               
The capital of the Western Province is Gizo, population around 4,000. On Gizo, the Gilbertese villages of New Manra, Titiana, Babanga and Nusuburuku suffered the most loss of life and possessions, as they were close to the sea. Fifty-two people were lost altogether in the Western and Choiseul Provinces.

Aid agencies came to help, including UNICEF, UNDAC, Save the Children, Medecins sans Frontieres, Telecoms sans Frontieres, World Vision, Oxfam and Caritas. Emergency help is now giving way to rehabilitation. Aid donors are dividing the responsibility. UNICEF is giving children’s playing kits; Save the Children are focussing on water tanks. Caritas will be the main agency helping the villages around Moli, Fauro and Nila. They will focus on kindergartens, schools, clinics, housing and infrastructure (wharves/bridges). Caritas does not fund churches or church buildings. Gizo has not yet been assigned to a donor. Hopefully, the Provincial Government can ensure that these most badly affected will receive long-term help.

Food gardens and wells destroyed by the salt water, take 3 months or more to recover. Those who fish for food and income lost canoes, fishing lines and nets. The tsunami caused major subsidence of some reefs and raised others over 3m. Most aid donors stopped emergency supplies after one month, not wanting the people to become aid dependent. They forgot to ask whether the people had any income! Caritas has tried to bridge this gap for the hungry.

Background:

The Solomon Islands are an arc of volcanic mountainous islands that have risen from the sea. They are surrounded by fringing reefs and there are some low coral sand atolls. They are part of the Pacific Rim of Fire and the people are used to earthquakes. Most families know to run for high ground if the sea suddenly retreats.

The main resource of the country is its 500,000 people; mostly Melanesian (94.5%) with some Polynesian (3%), Micronesian (1.2%) and others, including Chinese and Malaysians. Most of the population are Christian, with the main denominations being Church of Melanesia (Anglican) (33%), Catholic (19%), South Seas Evangelical (17%), Seventh Day Adventist (11%), United Church (10%), Christian Fellowship Church (2%), other Christian (5%), and others (3%) including Indigenous Animists, Bahai and Muslim.

The main income for the country comes from exports of timber, fish and coconut/palm oil. The islands are rich in mineral resources, as yet largely unmined. Mining and logging companies are now descending on the country. They sometimes ignore Government provisions for safety of workers, wages, and the paying of company tax and royalties to landowners.
 
Over 85% of the population are rural people, growing their own food, building houses from local timber and leaf. Most of these people do not have reliable water, electricity, or toilets. Most schools in villages do not have libraries or toilets.

Many families do not have a regular cash income. There are no social services as we know them – no aged or disability pensions, unemployment benefits or child support income. Families are the main support and ‘safety net’. Rural families depend on getting daily food from the women’s gardens and the men’s fishing. Rural families are cash poor. The rural people used to get income from selling copra (dried coconut). The price dropped and shipping is no longer reliable. Cocoa plantations are only viable if there is quick, clean, dry transport for the ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ beans. All families need money for school fees, travel (fuel for canoes or boat/plane fares), and family gatherings – funerals and weddings.

There are only 30,000 people in paid jobs in the Solomons. Families in town use cash to buy food for themselves and their ‘wantoks’. Wages are low. (Our Sisters working as full-time pastoral workers in the dioceses are paid the equivalent of $120 AUD a month). The minium wage for manual workers is $2 AUD a day.

The Kiribati (Gilbertese) are atoll island people: fishermen, sailors and navigators, the women weave mats; dancing is integral to their culture. They are a minority in the Solomons – environmental ‘refugees’ from the Phoenix Islands from 1955 to 1970. Rural communities were making an income from beche-de-mer – now fished out; trochus shell – fished out; then farming seaweed – price dropped as supply increased. They have little access to land. Many have lost houses and possessions in this disaster. Pressure will be on relatives in paid jobs to give beyond their means. There is no ‘spare’ land in the Solomons. It all belongs to traditional Melanesian groups. Occupation by outsiders is by negotiation.

There are problems with delivering goods and services to rural areas. Transport, airports, communication have deteriorated since the ethnic tension problems in Guadalcanal over the past 10 years. However, radio phone links have proved their worth. A new mobile station at Gizo was crucial in alerting aid agencies to the plight of the people. Gaomai people took their radio transmitter, battery and solar panel with them into the hills.

Stories:

A small boy on Ranonga Island was playing soccer when the quake and landslide carried him towards the sea. The tsunami didn’t flood in because the whole island had risen at least 3 metres. His mother, Lovelyn ran to where the boys had been playing; someone yelled that her son had disappeared. She clambered down the earth and found his foot sticking up. They dug him out, relatively unharmed!

Reef and mangrove habitats have been damaged. When one man returned to try to get crayfish from their usual place, he found only two lost saucepans!
 
The Dominican Fathers thought they had lost their young pigs, carried away in the tsunami – only to find they had swum back to the mother pig across the water!
Our Sisters had major damage to their house on Loga and to St Anne’s. The old Moli and Nila houses were relatively untouched! In each place, the convents were in the middle of the island: the tsunami waves came round the island from each side, met in the middle and cancelled out! Damage to the left and right of them!

We have a challenge now: to build environmentally sound, strong housing, combining new technology and local skills, suited to ministry and relevant for village life.

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