- (AFP) -- Inhabitants of the remote Pacific island of
Tikopia survived a devastating cyclone and massive waves that destroyed
hundreds of their homes a week ago by hiding in caves.
-
- The Australian newspaper said a chartered helicopter
reached Tikopia on Friday and heard from residents that the island's more
than 1,300 inhabitants survived Cyclone Zoe when it roared through the
area last weekend.
-
- Tikopia, part of the Solomon Islands chain, had been
cut off from the outside world since Cyclone Zoe hit the area with winds
of more than 300 kilometres per hour.
-
- There are also concerns following Zoe for residents of
Anuta, also in the eastern Solomons, and for the Vanuatu island of Mota
Lava further east.
-
- A ship with medical personnel and relief supplies is
headed to Tikopia from the Solomons capital Honiara but was not due to
arrive until the weekend.
-
- Earlier overflights of Tikopia by fixed-wing aircraft
showed entire villages wiped out by the storm, fuelling fears of a heavy
death toll among the island's population of up to 2,000.
-
- But Geoff Mackley, a freelance photographer who flew
aboard the helicopter for The Australian, said they were greeted by locals
running toward the aircraft with tales of survival.
-
- "The whole way there I thought I would see hundreds
of dead and festering bodies but instead we were just overwhelmed with
people running toward the plane," Mackley told The Australian.
-
- Residents said they had enough warning of Cyclone Zoe
to hide in mountain caves that had been used for centuries to shelter from
tropical storms, the newspaper said.
-
- It was not clear how the helicopter reached Tikopia,
which lies at the eastern end of the Solomon chain, far from any airfields.
-
- Zoe slammed into the eastern Solomons last weekend with
winds above 300 kilometers per hour.
-
- An AFP photographer aboard an Australian air force plane
which flew over Tikopia Wednesday saw only small numbers of people in areas
where large villages had once stood.
-
- Martin Karani, an official with the Solomons National
Disaster Council (NDC) in Honiara told government-owned Solomon Islands
Broadcasting Corporation that two entire villages housing around 700 people
on Tikopia had been buried by sand.
-
- Meanwhile the French navy in neighbouring Vanuatu mounted
a separate mission Friday to establish the fate of the nearby Banks Islands
which suffered an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, triggering
landslides just four days before Cyclone Zoe hit.
-
- The Solomon Islands, battered by four years of civil
war which have bankrupted the economy, is under international pressure
after it failed to mount any bid to find out what had happened to Tikopia
and Anuta, home to some 3,000 people, after Zoe hit them last Saturday.
-
- The handling of the relief operation has drawn criticism
in both Australia and New Zealand, particularly for the way it has taken
so long for any contact to be made.
-
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected
by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence
you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any
way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the
prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.
|
