New harbour in Cooks outer island reduces accidents
New harbour in Cooks outer island reduces accidents.
Transcript
The mayor of Mauke in the Cook Islands says there has been a drop in shipping accidents since the opening of the new harbour on the island.
The $4 million reconstruction project, which also included a new harbour in Mitiaro, was funded by the New Zealand Aid programme and was completed in May.
The Mayor of the outer island of Mauke, George Samuela, told Beverley Tse during a visit to the harbour, what has resulted so far.
GEORGE SAMUELA: Offloading has improved. We have improved a lot in terms of our cargo being brought from the ships. Because normally the ship stays out and then our barge has to go out and bring the cargo in. With the new harbour system at the moment, it's much improved our offloading. Usually before we lost a lot in terms of offloading the cargo. And that cost a lot, too. But at the moment we rarely have such accidents now.
BEVERLEY TSE: Before this new harbour how many accidents would you say occurred?
GS: It really depends on the weather. When the sea is calm it's all right, we don't have it. But when the sea is rough then, yes, we've got quite a few. Two, three, four, sometimes five boatloads of cargo got swamped by the waves.
BT: But not anymore?
GS: Not anymore. It's just rare occasions that our captains on the barge mismanage the waves coming in. They just mismanage it. There's one every six months, but not like before. But now there's quite a few improvements on our harbour system.
BT: How often would ships come in and out of this?
GS: They will come here to Mauke from Rarotonga about once a month or twice. And if we run out of foodstuffs and other necessary groceries, we'll have to fly that from Rarotonga on the plane. But normally we have sufficient goods, commodities that come on the boat. Rarely we have a shortage as [we had] before.
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