Vanuatu
Living....
Earthquakes-
Click
on a photo to enlarge
I feel the earth
movin' under my feet...
At 4.23am on Thursday 3 Jan 2002, Port Vila was
rocked by a severe earthquake magnitude - 7.2.
The epicentre was 50km west of Vila and 30km below the earth's surface.
The earthquake was followed by many aftershocks, including another of 6.7 the
next evening. We were away in Australia when the quake struck but
returned several days later and experienced some of the aftershocks (which
continued for about a month).
Tremours are a normal occurrence in Vanuatu
because the Pacific Faultline runs down along the west of us. The last time Vanuatu experienced a quake of this size it resulted in a
tsunami
(tidal wave) that wiped out a village on Pentecost Island.
After January's ‘big’ quake the ocean and lagoon level did drop
dramatically which can be indicative of a tsunami approaching so some low-lying
village areas evacuated - fortunately the water returned during a super low
tide. We later found out that if the tide had been high, the main part of
town could have been inundated by up to 1 metre of water.
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Wharf
Road |
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The road to the main wharf was
blocked for several weeks by landslides and huge boulders.
There is still the risk of further subsidence, especially during heavy
rain, so safety fences have been erected to stop loose gravel and small
stones from landing on the road. As you can imagine these structures
would have little effect in stopping any of the big boulders.
The road was also badly cracked and subsided in several
places. The blocking of the Wharf Road prevented the delivery of goods from the
wharf, so until the road was made safe, a
barge was used to allow the transport of goods
to other wharves that were not so badly damaged.
The cruise ship also had to dock just off from the main wharf and ferry
its passengers by small boats into the main part of town.
It is sobering to note that the area where the boulders
landed could have been
packed with taxis, buses and tourists if the quake had
occurred when the cruise ship had docked.
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Clem's
Hill |
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The steep hill that leads out of
town also suffered landslides and continues to be very unstable.
We felt very nervous driving up it when we took the photos on
the left. |
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The mountain ranges are scarred
with numerous landslides. Fortunately the mountainous regions tend
to be unpopulated. |
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Mele
Bridge |
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These
photos were taken of the approaches to the Mele Bridge. This new
bridge, funded by Australian Aid money, had only been completed during
2001 and had been built to replace the previous one that had been washed
away several years ago during Cyclone Dani.
Fortunately the bridge itself seems to be okay.
However the approaches are badly damaged. As you can see from these
photos no safety beacons or signs were erected to warn drivers of
dangerous road conditions. The only indicators for drivers to slow
down were a few well placed rocks and some branches or plastic bags
sticking out of the cracks in the pavement. |
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Teouma
Bridge |
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Teouma
Bridge on the eastern road out of town was the worst effected
bridge. Like Mele Bridge it was also relatively new, having been
constructed using Japanese funding as part of the Efate Ring Road Project.
The shock waves here caused the approaches to the bridge
to liquefy. This resulted in the bridge tipping at a severe angle as
can be seen in the photos at left.
Soil has been pushed up to it to allow temporary access but
it doesn’t feel real safe and while we were there taking these photos, three truckloads of
people drove over it at the same time!!!!
The bridge platform is
undamaged however the piers have tipped and along with the approaches,
will need to be reinstated when more funding becomes available. |
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Damage
to buildings |
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Large cracks are evident in many
buildings (some of which have just been covered up with filler and paint). Some windows were smashed as buildings flexed.
The worse damage seems to have been suffered by buildings with more
than one storey.
Our local supermarket Au Bon Marche (as shown in the top
three photos on the left) will have to be
demolished which is a tragedy for the owners, the people who worked there
and those of us who shopped there.
The photos show some of the large cracks on outer walls. Inside the
support piers failed badly and there was some debate as to whether people
should be allowed inside to remove undamaged stock while there was still
the danger of further aftershocks.
Other
buildings listed for demolition are, parts of the French High School, and
several government Ministry buildings. The fourth photo on the left
shows the empty shell that is all that remains of the Ministry of
Education.
The Meridien and Crown Plaza Resorts also suffered
damage to their island bungalows, which subsided on the sandy
base of their islands.
Other damage occurred to some buildings along the waterfront where
reclaimed land subsided and sections of the seawall were damaged.
|
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At Pango
Resort a large landslide sent huge boulders crashing down to destroy two
bungalows (as shown in this final photo) Fortunately no-one was in them at
the time. A boulder measuring 20m by 15m still blocks the access
road and guests have to walk the last couple of hundred metres to get to
the resort. |
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What's
it like to go through a big quake?
Being absent in Australia, we off course
missed the big quake. Its hard to imagine how scary it was, the
aftershocks we experienced upon our return were unnerving enough. Although
the photos give you an idea of some of the damage, for many people, the
emotional damage is worse than the physical. I spoke with some friends of
their experience of the earthquake.
Apparently the roar could be heard coming first then it felt
like a train was driving through the house.
Everything was swaying and crashing and the sound was deafening. The first instinct was to grab your children and get out of the building
but most couldn’t even walk as the ground was swaying so much.
One friend told me of how all of her kitchen
cupboards flew open and glasses, bottles and plates flew out and smashed on the
floor. The TV fell out of its unit,
and a bookcase tipped its contents on her youngest son’s bed - fortunately he
wasn’t in it.
The kids
were calling out from their bedrooms but the quake had caused a
blackout so they had to grope around in the dark to find shoes before they could move because of
the broken glass everywhere.
Other
peoples’ tales were similar, cupboards flying open, glasses smashing, computer
monitors falling. We are so
grateful that our place was basically undamaged, an empty beer bottle I had been
using as a vase, the only casualty.
As for the locals their homes being on the
whole simpler structures faired okay. Most
locals moved out of their houses and slept outside for the next few nights.
For about a month afterwards, the fear and apprehension was evident every
time you heard the roar in the distance and felt the floor begin to sway and
there was a tendency in all of us to want to run out of the house with each new
tremour.
. . .
in Vanuatu
