Heavy rain threat worries Solomon Islanders
The Red Cross says the threat of further wet weather in the flood damaged Solomon Islands is likely to hamper recovery efforts and is making people very nervous.
Transcript
The Red Cross says the threat of further wet weather in the flood damaged Solomon Islands is likely to hamper recovery efforts and is making people very nervous.
The Solomon Islands Meteorological Service issued a heavy rain alert to all provinces early Thursday saying localised heavy rain may lead to flash flooding to communities living close to rivers, streams and low lying areas.
A Red Cross spokesperson, Janna Hamilton, told Jenny Meyer the potential for more flooding will probably delay recovery for the homeless.
Janna Hamilton says the Red Cross's main concern is to try and maintain the supply of clean water to people in evacuation centres and to build sanitation facilities to help prevent the spread of disease.
JANNA HAMILTON: Yes, there's been a heavy rain warning for the past few days in the outer islands, but it was reviewed to also include Guadalcanal province in the past day, which is where the severe flooding took place nearly three weeks ago. So it's really bad news for the people that are certainly still sheltering in the evacuation centres here in Honiara, but also for all of the communities affected in the rural Guadalcanal Plains, which is already been very difficult to access with aid and fresh water. So people here are very worried. I know my own colleagues who are living close to the river that were just lucky that the river just missed their homes last time. They're very nervous about any more rain falling.
JENNY MYER: Is it actually raining at the moment or is it predicted in the coming hours?
JH: It has been raining. It rained overnight but right now it's pretty still. But I can just see across the road is just piles of mud from where the river came through three weeks ago, and any more rain in the city and out the plains is going obviously to cause a lot of havoc. Traffic hasn't been able to resume to normal in the last three weeks just with a huge amount of damage to the roading. So any more rain is just going to certainly hamper the aid efforts here.
JM: Do you think it will be necessary for people to move to higher ground if this heavy rain warning actually does really start to come into play?
JH: Certainly the National Disaster Management Office here in Solomon Islands are keeping all of the agencies and relevant authorities up to date.
JM: How is the Red Cross effort actually going there? I guess it must be difficult if, like you say, you're having to act on the current situation as well as what's recently happened?
JH: It's definitely a challenging response. Particularly, we've got the Guadalcanal Plains, which is the rural, more isolated communities and there's an estimated 40,000 people affected from the floods nearly three weeks ago there. And I was out joining the teams just this week and could get a sense of the poor quality of the roads. Really, they're just mud tracks, and small bridges have been washed away. It was very difficult in last two weeks to even navigate those roads, and it had actually been dry since the flooding. So now with the added risk of more rain, it's just going to mean it's going to take a lot longer to be able to reach these people that are desperately in need of hygiene materials, and kitchen materials, and fresh clean water.
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