Relief to tsunami-affected areas: water, sanitation and the politicisation of aid

The death toll in the Solomon Islands continues to rise as reports flow back in from more islated areas ('Aid flows grow in Solomon Islands, tsunami tolls set to rise').

I just spoke to a friend, J, who lives in Honiara but is from Choiseul and has a lot of family in the Western Province (esp. Gizo). He said that he's heard from his family in Gizo, who have lost their homes and all their property and are now living 'up in the hills'. Neither J nor his family in Gizo have heard from their wantoks in Choiseul - communication with people in Choiseul is difficult at the best of times (most Solomon Islanders depend on radio rather than telephone), but is virtually impossible at present due to reduced movement between the islands.

J said that while there were originally hold ups with the distribution of aid because some of the airports had been damaged by the earthquake, aid was now getting through. He also reported water shortages for people who lived in Gizo - unlike people in many of the villages, people in Gizo rely on rainwater and their tanks cracked during the earthquake (see also here and here).

People in Gizo do, however, have access to food, because most people's gardens are up in the hills, and weren't affected by the tsunami (see also Solomon Star News, 'People Are Now Starving' and The Age, 'Water shortage hits Solomons').

Aid workers have warned that disease could take a greater number of lives than the tsunami event itself ('Disease could kill more than tsunami').

Michael McKenna for The Australian reports from the Western Province that relief effrot is now surrounded by "political infighting and allegations of poor co-ordination and pilfering" (here):

Village elders accuse government authorities of favouring their own racial groups. Australian police, in the country with the Regional Mission to the Solomon Islands,
say their counterparts are lazy, (nice!!) and regional politicians argue that Honiara is not doing enough.

The Sydney Morning Herald also carries reports of the politicisation of aid ('Rescue efforts all at sea'). As was the case during the Boxing Day Tsunami, it appears that in some areas children (perhaps adults, too?) got excited about the unusual behaviour of the sea and ran down to the waters edge, only to lose their lives as the waves came racing back in.

Both articles indicate that the wantok system is preventing some people from participating in the relief effort and/or receiving aid. Interestingly, none of this is reported in the Solomon Star, which frequently features rather robust articles and opinion pieces.

Quite apart from the obstacles posed by regional and local politics, the geography of the Solomon Islands is inevitably posing logistical problems:

The logistics in the disaster zone are highly problematic. Western Province has a population of 80,000 and more than 600 islands out of the 900-plus islands in the entire Solomon Islands archipelago ('Rescue efforts all at sea').

The SMH also features a note about the Gilbertese, who form a substantial minority in the Solomon Islands. The Gilbertese originate from Kirbati, and being Micronesian (rather than Melansian, like Solomon Islanders), are easily identifiable. They experience a degree of social marginalisation that is expressed partly through their physical marginalisation - the Gilbertese live predominantly in fishing settlements along the coast, and were highly exposed to the tsunami. For example, while the tsunami barely affected Honiara, Gilbertese villages were affected although no lives were lost (the Gilbertese saw the water going out too far, and ran for higher ground). As the article in the SMH indicates, however, the Gilbertese around the epicentre of the quake were not so lucky.

The limited infrastructure in Solomon Islands is perhaps best captured by this piece, which notes that Save the Children has donated 20 chairs, a desktop computer and a printer to the National Disaster Council. I was last in Honiara in 2003 - and regularly saw workers not only from NGOs, but from the UN, using computers in one of the two internet cafes in Honiara.

AlertNet now has a page dedicated to the quake and tsunami (South Pacific quake) as does ReliefWeb (Solomon Islands Earthquake and Tsunami).