TSUNAMI

Lest anyone think from our earlier blogs that all we do it hike around New Zealand taking pictures of beautiful things, this week should change that view. We have been inundated since the 8.3 earthquake hit Samoa early on (our) Wednesday morning. On the heels of that quake, which shook the islands for almost five minutes, came the tsunami wave. For Samoa, the warning was too late. Most didn't realize the water was coming until they heard and saw it heading for their beaches. Many villages are built right on the beach, and the only place to go was uphill to higher ground. Most made it out of harm's way - but some didn't. Mostly the elderly and little children. The death toll continues to climb, and many are still unaccounted for.

The earthquake was off the coast of American Samoa, so both this island and the island of Upolu, Western Samoa were the hardest hit. Eventually, there was a tsunami warning issued for the entire South Pacific, including New Zealand. Since our office is located just a couple blocks from the east coast beaches, that was a pretty exciting thought! There were warnings of the danger in going to wait and watch for the water to come, but of course, there were those that did. Nothing materialized for us here, and luckily for most of the other island nations, but Samoa was definitely hit.

As we are responsible for welfare and humanitarian aid, the work began! As luck would have it, our supervisor had left the day before for the Marshall Islands for ten days, quite far north of us. The Area Presidency and the Director of Temporal Affairs, the leaders and decision makers for the Pacific, had also left for their General Conference meetings in Salt Lake City. So guess what? Elder Larsen assumed his role again, a la Katrina. We have spent the last four days with a phone to each ear and both hands on the keyboard. How did anything ever get done before technology? Yesterday morning we had a 2 1/2 hour tsunami relief coordinating conference call with Salt Lake Welfare Department, our Area leaders who are there in Salt Lake, the mission presidents for Samoa and Tonga, Stake presidents from all of Samoa, and the Church employees on the ground in Samoa, as well as others from here in the Area office. Another conference call again this morning. These are going to be a regular item for the next several days. Up to now, the major work on the ground has been identifying the dead and missing, assessing the damage and the needs, and deciding how rapidly and where relief efforts can get in.

Salt Lake is preparing several shipping containers for air freighting into Samoa. One container with nothing but rice, one with tuna, another with other canned goods, and one with a lot of 100-pound bales of clothing and with hygiene kits. They want to send out a loaded plane.

The pictures below are some of what's come in from one of the mission presidents or church employees in charge of welfare on the ground. Most of the pictures are in American Samoa.

These pictures are both from downtown Pago Pago, where we used to shop when we lived in American Samoa. The town is built right at the end of the harbor, so the water crashed right up the bay and through town. Heresay is that there is a boat sitting in the Pago stake center, which is right opposite the bay. That hasn't been confirmed, but there is definitely damage.

This is the road to nowhere - now. The villages beyond where the road was destroyed are unreachable by car. As you can see, the road is built right along the shore, so imagine that a wall of water would probably take anything and anyone in it's way.

Same location. Many vehicles were washed out to sea as the water receded. Fatalities were high as people couldn't scramble uphill and out of the way fast enough to avoid being pulled out to sea. The numbers of dead keep climbing, and the missing, by this time, are assumed dead. They will probably never locate some of the bodies. Others may be buried by the sand that washed inland and covered everything.

Everything is littered with debris from homes, trees, cars, whatever the water destroyed. They have found bodies in trees, and are still picking through the mess in search of those missing.

Boats, obviously not where they belong! But then, neither is anything else at this point.

This is one of our church buildings - wires down, windows knocked out, litter everywhere.

This mud hole was once the church parking lot, as you can tell by the drain that's exposed. Mud and sand cover everything.

The inside of the church gym. Pews and who knows what all, stacked up in one end. Where will they put all the debris???

Even inside the chapel, pews are all tumbled, windows broken out, mud, tree trash, water, mud.... did I say mud?

Streets full of damaged vehicles, and again, a layer of mud/sand and trash covering everything.

Relief efforts began almost immediately from the areas of the islands not impacted by the tsunami. Clean drinking water is always, always a problem in the islands. Villages with clean water began hauling in containers of drinking water. Helping hands on the job! (Here they wear Helping Hands vests rather than t-shirts.) Locals immediately began collecting clothing and delivered pick-up loads of bags filled with clothes for those homeless who lost everything. Food, bedding, cooking utensils, etc. were donated by other villages who were more fortunate.

The Church began purchasing what was available locally until the supplies were exhaused, and the goods were given to the victims, many of whom are still camped out up in the higher places. Some still have not come down, fearing more earthquakes and waves. They are hesitant to come back to their seashore villages and rebuild. Many, many have lost family members. In fact, there is probably not a Samoan in the world who has not lost a family member. Samoans consider their village their family, as they are all descended from common ancestors. It's really a very large extended family, and they all know how they are connected to each other.

Australia and New Zealand immediately began bringing in medical supplies, food, water, and temporary morgues (refrigerated shipping containers). The military has been brought in now, searching for the dead and missing. The immediate problem is burying their dead. They don't have cemeteries, because they normally bury their family close to their fale (home) in the village. But many of the destroyed villages won't be rebuilt where they existed before. The government in Western Samoa has volunteered to supply the coffins and have a mass burial ASAP, and later erect some sort of monument to all those who died. The pressure is to get the dead buried as soon as possible because of fear of disease. The stench from all the vegetation decaying and piles and piles of debris is becoming horrible. Whole villages are now just dumps. Samoa sits almost on the equator and the temperatures are hot and humid.

Our daily conference calls have coordinated the efforts of the Church locally, the Welfare Office here in Auckland, and the Humanitarian items available in Salt Lake City. DHL, the world-wide delivery service, has offered a plane to fly the items being supplied from Church Headquarters into Apia, Western Samoa in the next day or so. As more immediate needs are presented, another cargo load will be arranged. On our conference call today, wheelchairs were requested to be added to the shipment, as well as the food and clothing items already on the list.

Long term needs will be food. Samoans eat mostly root crops (taro and yams) and tree crops such as coconuts, breadfruit and bananas. In the villages affected, what wasn't uprooted or washed away is now contaminated with salt water and silt or sand. It will take several months for new crops to be planted and mature. There will be a continued draw on humanitarian funds to supply what is needed in the coming months. You may be aware that, in addition to what's happened here, there have been other disasters, all in the past week or so, in Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. The Church is in the midst of delivering aid to all these places.

Incidently, humanitarian aid, by definition, is to help relieve the suffering of the poor and needy. It's NOT meant just for church members. When we supply aid, it's for everyone. It's amazing what quantities go out from Welfare Square in Salt Lake City. But in addition to that, money is provided to purchase as much locally as is available, if there are areas near the devastation that have needed items. We always try to put money back into the local economy wherever possible.

Alot of sad stories have come out of this week. I'm sure you've heard or read of some of them. But other things have probably replaced news of the Pacific now at home. Disasters seem to pass quickly when they're far. Here we will continue to read about the repercussions of this for months to come.

As a Welfare Department, there are questions that we immediately ask in time of disaster:

1. Are the missionaries all accounted for?

2. Are the church members all accounted for? How many homes are destroyed/uninhabitable?

3. What is the condition of church properties?

4. Are there church buildings being used for temporary shelters?

5. What are the immediate needs? i.e., food, water, shelter, clothing

6. What are the needs of the community at large?

In connection with that, we heard yesterday of a story that I thought I might share with you. It may or may not come out through Church channels, but we're getting it right from the source.

Although all the islands of the Pacific were in potential danger, it had appeared that Samoa and possibly Tonga took the brunt of it. Mission presidents are required to immediately account for their missionaries, report that here to the Pacific Area Office, after which Church Headquarters is notified. That's how the report is issued that you hear or read that all missionaries are accounted for after disasters. Immediately after the tsunami struck, the two mission presidents began to account for their missionaries. Two elders in Western Samoa had been inside their fale when it was washed out to sea, but managed to survive by hanging on to a tree. The Samoan mission president could not determine about the fourteen on American Samoa for a good part of the day because communication had completely been knocked out there. Eventually they were all accounted for.

However, the Tongan mission president had two sister missionaries on the remote island of Niuatoputapu that he couldn't contact. This is a teeny, tiny little island belonging to Tonga, but the furthest "outer island" in the Tongan chain. It's actually closer to Samoa than it is to Tonga, and the nearest island to the epicenter of the earthquake.

If you've ever seen the movie, "The Other Side of Heaven", this is the very same island that John Groberg wrote about. The island is described to look like a sombrero, an almost round, very flat island, with a slight rise in the center. Population is less than a thousand people. The president was desperate to find his missionaries, but there was no way to know if they were all right.

The Tongan government couldn't establish any communication at all, and decided to fly a plane in to inspect. However, the landing strip, which had been made of crushed coral, was washed away and there was nowhere to land. Most of the island had been washed over by the tsunami. It was obvious from the air that most of the houses in two of the three little villages that make up the island had been washed away or moved to a different location by the waves. It appeared that the third village, where the missionaries lived, had not be affected by the tsunami. The president was hopeful that was good news, but there still no word about fatalities and no way to reach the people.

The government then sent in a boat with emergency medical supplies, food, and people to repair the landing strip and restore communication. When the boat landed, the islanders told the crew that they had nine people dead and four critically injured. The boat crew took the four injured people to the nearest island that provided medical care. The crew were given a list with names of the fatalities, which President McMurray was then given. His two sister missionaries' names were not on it. But no one knew for sure about them.

On the island where the injured were taken, the local missionaries serving there went to the hospital to talk to the people from Niuatoputapu, and this is the story they heard from an old man who had been among the injured brought in. He had been in his car, running from the water by trying to drive up to higher ground, when his car flipped over and he was trapped. He was pulled from the car by what he called his "angels of mercy", the two sister missionaries. They attended to his injuries and got him to the chapel where he was cared for. From there he was taken off the island by the rescue boat to get medical treatment. He credits his life to his "angels of mercy." Now the President knew. The sisters were not only alive and well, but were ministering to the needs of others.

The story to date is that the President is trying to get into Niuatoputapu on another aid boat from the capital city of Nuku'alofa, Tonga. There are two branches of the Church on the island, with a membership of about 150, and he is their ecclesiastical leader. He is taking eight strong elders with him to help the people with the clean up of their island. He will offer to reassign the sisters to another location. Will they go? I'm wondering.

From Wednesday morning to Friday night, there was no news about them. All President McMurray could do was assure the families that he was doing everything he could to locate them and let the families know as evidence came in that the sisters might still be alive. What a relief it was to know, finally, that all the missionaries were accounted for.