One missing from PNG storm

Last Updated: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:12:00 +1100

Papua New Guinea authorities are attempting to drop relief assistance to more than 600 people stranded without food or water following a huge storm surge and flooding.

Up to 20,000 people have reportedly been left homeless and one person is reported missing after the storm surge hit PNG's island provinces and parts of the mainland.

Officials say PNG's New Ireland province has been the worst hit, with waves washing away 30 village settlements along a 200 kilometre stretch of coast.

More than 100 people have been stranded on Tans island for two days.

Director of PNG's disaster office, Martin Mose, says authorities are sending food and water to residents on the island which has been swamped by five to 10-metre waves.

"We are organising relief assistance which within the next couple of hours should be ready to put into the air, especially for those people who need immediate attention right now," he said.

Due to remoteness of the effected region, damage and figures may be much higher, but provincial officials can not confirm the extent of the damage because of communication problems.

New Ireland doctor, Penney Charles, says up to 20,000 people have been displaced.

"We need food, we need medicine, we need shelter, it's coming in like a small tsunami type of thing."

The home province on the PNG mainland of Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, East Sepik, also suffered similar damage.

Huge waves

Reports from the East Sepik province say the huge waves lasted for about six hours and the flooding displaced some 1,500 people.

Patients at Wewak hospital needed to be evacuated as sea front villages were washed away.

The high seas brought back memories of the 1998 Aitape tsunami which claimed more than 2,000 lives in the same province.

There were, however, no reports of seismic activity.

It is understood the storm surges were created by a combination of king tides, swell direction, heavy rain and wind.

Region reports surge damage

In the Marshall Islands, homes on Majuro Atoll have also been damaged when a king tide washed tons of garbage, rocks and debris onto the low-lying atoll.

The Pacific Magazine reports the eastern coast of Majuro was hardest hit, with waves slamming seawalls, flooding onto roads and into houses.

There were no reported injuries, and damage is limited.

And freak waves have damaged dozens of houses in the Indonesian province of Papua, forcing evacuations but causing no injuries.

An official says about 36 houses in two villages outside Jayapura have been damaged by four-metre high waves.

Five houses were swept away.

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