First dysentery cases reported after tsunami
Pastor Dale Morgan
First dysentery cases reported after tsunami*
POSTED: 0354 GMT (1154 HKT), April 5, 2007
Story Highlights
• NEW: Cases reported at makeshift camps near hard-hit Gizo
• Survivors complain of chaos and slow delivery of of limited resources
• Red Cross says aid has sped up since Gizo's airport opened on Thursday
• U.N. estimates about 50,000 people affected, including 30,000 children
GIZO, Solomon Islands (AP) -- Villagers buried their dead where they
found them -- including two young boys discovered in one shattered
community -- and the first cases of dysentery were reported Friday among
survivors of the Solomon Islands' earthquake and tsunami.
Susie Chippendale, communications manager for the Red Cross operation,
said a small number of dysentery cases had been reported in addition to
the diarrhea that has broken out in makeshift camps where at least 2,000
people are living near the hardest-hit town of Gizo.
"It seems pretty under control at this stage, and hopefully there won't
be a huge outbreak," she said.
Frustration was growing among survivors that the relief effort has been
chaotic and slow, and officials in the impoverished nation's capital
Honiara conceded it was taking longer than expected to crank up to full
speed. The reports of dysentery added urgency to the relief efforts.
Chippendale said the aid operation had sped up considerably since Gizo's
airport opened on Thursday, allowing military transport planes from New
Zealand and Australia to land with aid packages of tarps, water and food
rations. More supplies arrived in the town of Munda, a three-hour boat
ride away.
A French military plane from New Caledonia was shuttling supplies such
as water and purification systems, tents and tarps, food and medical
items from Honiara.
Two more police patrol boats finally arrived in Gizo overnight after
days of delays in Honiara, as officials struggled to find enough goods
to supply them.
Four Red Cross boats laden with medical supplies and shelter were
heading out of Gizo early Friday toward outlying villages where little
aid has been delivered.
Chippendale said the Red Cross was no longer waiting for field
assessments before deciding which villages need help because it appeared
they all do.
50,000 affected, U.N. says
On Thursday, the United Nations released its first estimates of the
human toll from the disaster, saying about 50,000 people had been
affected. The number included 30,000 children who are "highly
vulnerable" to malaria due to inadequate medical supplies and unsanitary
conditions, according to the U.N.
The U.N. also put the death toll from Monday's 8.1-magnitude quake and
tsunami at 34 people -- higher than the government's tally of 28,
although officials have said that is likely to rise.
More than three days after the disaster, there was still no official
tally of the missing. Conditions remained unknown at dozens of villages
along the battered coastal region.
In Gizo, the main town in the hardest-hit Western Province, flattened
homes lay in heaps of splintered wood, twisted tin roofs and other
debris. As men searched through the rubble, aid workers tended to the
injured on the grass under tarpaulins. On an overturned water tank,
someone had written, "No Hope Wet Monday."
At Titiana, residents buried two young boys they had found in the rubble
of shattered houses, using a salvaged trunk for one coffin and scraps of
debris for the other. The boys' parents remained missing. The village is
six miles from Gizo but unreachable by vehicle because chunks of
concrete had been washed out of the road.
Rev. Tikeri Birlata, a minister in the village, said people were burying
bodies quickly because they were worried about the smell and possible
disease. He said he was angry that no help had reached the village yet.
"It's really slow ... and the people are really suffering," he said.
Government officials acknowledged the aid effort was going more slowly
than they hoped, blaming the remoteness of the affected region and a
shortage of relief supplies in the capital.
Water, food, medicine shortage
Drinking water was in extremely short supply in Gizo, as well as food,
medicine and clothes.
"Aid is very slow in getting to the people who need it, the distribution
part is very slow," government spokesman Alfred Maesulia said after a
meeting of the National Disaster Council.
Jonathan Taisia, head of the Red Cross center in Gizo, said aid workers
needed bigger vehicles to move supplies and more volunteers to load
trucks and clear debris-strewn roads.
Disease remained a significant concern among the thousands of people
left homeless, many of whom were huddled in rudimentary camps in the
hills, afraid to return to the coasts.
Reports of diarrhea were becoming more widespread, and officials worried
about possible malaria and cholera outbreaks in the more than a dozen
makeshift high-ground camps.
Dr. Gregory Jilini, the senior health official in Western Province, said
work has begun to build pit toilets in camps around Gizo to fend off a
diarrhea outbreak.
"Sanitation is a big issue that needs to be addressed urgently," said
Allen Alepio, part of a team of six doctors and 15 nurses who opened a
clinic near Gizo on Thursday. "The children especially are getting
diarrhea."
The United Nations launched an appeal seeking $500,000 in donations, and
said it planned to open eight field hospitals in the disaster zone.
"With thousands crowded into temporary shelters and living quarters,
ensuring that the water and sanitation structures are re-established as
quickly as possible is critical," the U.N. warned.
Alex Lokopio, the premier of Western Province, said many more people
could be homeless than the government's initial estimate of 5,600.
Of the region's 90,000 people, most live along the coast, and the
tsunami "washed all their houses away," he said, estimating those with
damaged homes at up to 40,000.