Victims: Disaster office taking too long

 By ELIAS LARI

LAST year’s flood victims residing along the banks of Yelo River in Southern Highlands are still waiting on relief supplies from the national disaster office.

The villages from Ialibu to Las Wiru in the Ialibu-Pangia electorate are low in food supplies and facing hardship as the result of major flooding.

Food crops and properties worth millions of kina were destroyed and people were desperate.

The flood had washed away the Yelo River bridge that connected Pangia to the rest of the province and it took more than a month for the Works Department to reconstruct the bridge.

Even then the national disaster and provincial disaster officials  in Mendi had not returned to check out the affected families.

Villagers had fronted the district disaster office but were told that they were waiting for their allowances.

Garry Alphonse, a Tindua villager, said people were not receiving any support from the disaster offices.

He said they were desperate since the disaster struck and there were no options left to help themselves. 

“Up till now we are still waiting on the national and the provincial disaster offices to tell us what is really happening as we are struggling to help ourselves.”

He said with heavy rain continuing, people were living in fear.

“Can the national and the provincial disaster offices tell us when we will be receiving our relief supplies like food, seedlings and other assistance?” Alphonse said.