Aid agencies stepped up relief efforts in the Solomon Islands on Saturday as aftershocks rocked the region and fears grew of dysentery among the thousands of homeless tsunami victims.
Two Australian military medical teams were headed for the disaster-stricken western province as a barge full of aid was due in the local capital, Gizo, carrying tarpaulins, blankets, water, ropes, mosquito nets and medical supplies.
Large quantities of rice for the more than 2 000 survivors sheltering in primitive camps were unloaded from two freighters at Gizo harbour, which lost most of it wharves and jetties in the 8.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami early on Monday.
”Aid is arriving steadily now and we are getting it to the camps as quickly as we can,” said Nancy Jolo, of the Red Cross in Gizo.
Nearly 5 500 people were left homeless in the region by the seismic event, which killed at least 34 people and wiped out entire villages.
Survivors remain in roadside refugee camps on the high ground of the islands, too scared of another tsunami to return to their dwellings on the shoreline.
Aid workers and officials warned the toll will rise sharply as reports come in from outlying islands and as bodies from the double disaster are formally identified.
There have been constant tremors since Monday’s quake, with four aftershocks hitting the region on Friday night, one of them measuring 5.0.
Aid agencies were digging pit latrines in the camps on Saturday after an outbreak of diarrhoea, but Red Cross branch field officer Sipiru Rove said there was still a high risk of dysentery.
”I am expecting something like that to happen,” he said. ”So far we have had some cases of diarrhoea and we are trying to fix things in the camps to prevent it getting worse.”
Health authorities have also warned of malaria and cholera if sanitary conditions in the camps do not improve, but denied media reports that cases had already been detected.
Kenton Sade, a government doctor working at a makeshift medical camp set up after the hospital in Gizo was battered by the tsunami, said the levels of aid reaching the camps had improved and the relief effort would soon turn to providing proper shelter for villagers still living under tarpaulins.
”We’re moving out of the emergency response phase of the disaster now,” he said. ”We’re not getting patients arriving with severe injuries from the tsunami any more. The hospital is just treating ordinary sick people.
”We’ve had teams out making assessments in all the camps, including the outlying islands, and we know now what needs to be done. We need to turn our thoughts to rebuilding and resettling the people in the camps in the next few days and putting up proper buildings to give them shelter.”
Aid agencies also defended their response to the disaster following criticism from some village elders that help had been too slow in arriving in the remote outposts of the far-flung South Pacific archipelago.
”Aid has reached all the villages affected by the disaster,” said a spokesperson for the Australian relief agency AUSAid. ”All the villages have received some initial aid from our assessment teams and will be receiving increased amounts in the near future.
”It’s a geographical challenge, undoubtedly. Some of these communities are on very remote islands, but we have the relief here [in Gizo] now and we are getting it out to them.” — Sapa-AFP