PEOPLE in remote parts of Oro province continue to face mild to severe starvation as a result of heavy rains followed by flooding early this month.
Those involved in relief efforts continue but the excitement seems to have ebbed with the flood waters.
There might be a general feeling that normalcy has returned and that all is well again.
The word from a person involved in the relief effort is that all is not well.
People in the remote north where the Kamusi River had ravaged homes and gardens continue to face severe hardship and even death.
Reports reaching Popondetta over the weekend was that three more people had succumbed to hunger in those parts.
The Government’s commitment of K7 million is said to have been all spent, much of it on logistics. That is to say that most of the money has gone towards assessing the damage and into getting supplies ready and into the province. Getting food, medicine and other essential supplies into the hands and mouths of the sick and starving thousands – the biggest aim of the entire exercise – is only half done or in some areas, not done at all.
It is likely that despite the early good intention of so many people and organisations from abroad and within PNG, many people in the disaster areas will face the elements as if there is no relief at all aimed for them. It is likely too that many organisations and people are duplicating roles and there is a lack of coordination. Aid might not be extended to those most in need or some aid money and supplies might end up in the wrong hands, be misapplied or even stolen.
Whose role is it to ensure everything is coordinated?
Why has this happened – again?
Heavy rains followed by flooding, something so natural in PNG, should never come as a surprise to those managing disaster planning and management in the country.
Yet we are caught time and again when floods reach disaster scales. We have seen it in the Sepik, in the Ramu, in the Waghi and in areas where most major rivers are located.
There can be any number of reasons but to my mind, lack of preparedness seems to be the primary reason for the poor response to the Oro disaster in the first place.
Let me clarify why I state that the response was poor.
International weather bureaus were broadcasting the formation of Cyclone Guba off Thursday Island and heading PNG way days before the cyclone hit Milne Bay and Oro.
Yet all that PNG got was a heavy rainfall warning from the National Weather Service and this was only on the Monday after Port Moresby was drenched by the heaviest rainfall in 13 years. It would have been so easy to deduce that such rains would induce heavy flooding and that judging by the direction of the storm and wind speed this might be the tail end of the Cyclone Guba. The only thing the poor people know about the cyclone was when it hit them.
Government response to the disaster in Oro was pathetic. The first team in arrived several days after the flooding. Funding for the disaster was announced a full week later and a State of Emergency (SoE) declared almost a fortnight later.
People die of starvation in that kind of time. The disaster struck before the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Africa. The Prime Minister attended CHOGM and a week after returning apologised for not visiting Oro.
Think back of a different disaster in September 1994 when the active volcanoes, Tavurvur and Vulcan, posted by nature to guard Rabaul’s eastern and western ends, erupted simultaneously. A third volcano at the side of the hill at the head of Rabaul airport – a vent called Balangakaia also erupted and it was responsible for the demolition of Rabaul’s impressive Chinatown.
The 90,000 residents of Rabaul and surrounding villages only had one evening’s warning of a massive build-up of earth tremors. Escape by sea and by air was cut off. You could not escape by the coastal road to Kokopo because Vulcan guarded that exit point. The only way out was over the hill in the direction of Nonga Hospital.
Yet 90,000 residents escaped with the loss of one life – and that was an old man who was too feeble to move.
It was a miracle, some said. The reality was more earth bound, more in the action of the planners of a volcanic eruption. The residents had been prepared and told of how to respond in the event of a life-threatening eruption. They were shown maps of escape routes should one or both volcanoes erupted. They were told not to panic, to drop everything and to get to the nearest escape route. The message was repeated time and again. A people thus primed responded as one when the twin eruptions occurred on the morning of Sept 23 and 24. The dust entered the stratosphere and day was turned into night for days. Returning ash buried a thriving town, levelling buildings by the sheer weight of the ash. Yet no life but one was lost.
And that there, in our own country, is one success story of what planning and preparedness can do.
That is why there is a National Disaster and Emergency Service in PNG. That is why the service is allocated money each year. Its task is considered so important an army colonel is normally tasked to head the organisation.
There is an army which is tasked by the Constitution to engage in emergency relief operations. There is a Government operated radio service in each province which can play an early warning role. There is a National Weather Service which should be alerting people to all manner of weather-related problems.
If all of these organisations were functional and all of them were staffed by well trained, competent, alert and efficient officers and all of them were performing their jobs, the suffering and casualties suffered in disasters might be reduced. We are not as useless and helpless as we make ourselves out to be each time a disaster strikes us.
Disasters are called that because they come without warning and strike anywhere at any time. The best defence against them is advance planning and preparation.
We are told the total transport infrastructure restoration cost in Oro will run into the K200 million mark.
The K15 million Mr Polye intends to ask for this week is separate from the K20 million approved earlier for disaster relief efforts in the province.
Seven million kina was immediately released for use in the relief efforts with the balance yet to be drawn down, the minister said.