Eruption forces PNG islanders flee as food supply destroyed

[senorpepr]

Papua New Guinea is to start evacuating an entire island after a volcanic eruption destroyed the 9,000 inhabitants' supply of food.

Vulcanologist Herman Patia says the Manam islanders are mainly subsistence farmers and fishermen whose small farming plots have been covered with ash by the island's erupting volcano.

The eruption began last month but resumed with a vengeance on Monday, sending plumes of ash up to 10 kilometers above the volcano's summit and raining down on surrounding areas.

Mr Patia says that nine people were injured on Thursday when around 20 houses collapsed under the weight of ash.
He says that government officials have decided to relocate the entire island population to the mainland.
"According to reports they are evacuating the 9,000 people beginning today," Mr Patia said.
"They will all be evacuated from the island because all their food gardens, their sources of food, they have all been damaged by the ash fall.

"Definitely there will be a shortage of food."
The Government has identified land near the mainland settlement of Bogia, just north of Madang on the northern mainland coast, where the islanders will be relocated.

Mr Patia says although the relocation is temporary, Bogia may well turn into a second home due to the repeated eruptions of the 1,800 meter high volcano.

The volcano, which sits on a near circular island around 20 kilometers in diameter off PNG's northern coast, is regarded as a comparatively "high-risk" volcano in the seismically active country.

It last erupted in 1996, when a lava flow hit a village and killed 13 people.
The latest eruption began on October 24, then resumed last Monday and again picked up late on Friday, with explosions from the volcano sending ash again raining down on the north-west of the island.

No reports had been received of any deaths.
Mr Patia says that seismic information indicates that the volcano is still very active and a new eruption could happen at any time.

"Seismic activity is at moderate to moderate-high level and volcanic tremors are still being recorded continuously," he said.

"This indicates to us that inside the volcano it is still very active. Another build-up in activity would happen a short time."

[Wnghs2007]

That does not sound good