A thousand photos wouldn't be sufficient to show Samoa and the impact of the Tsunami. I know. I have more than three thousand photos taken going right back to a week or so after the big wave until last week. Here are a couple of the more interesting ones. I've left off the rubble and destruction ones that we've all seen so many of.
George Meredith's Fale Samoa
At the base of the Sagitoa Wharf is a perfectly round Fale which they call here a Fale Samoa. It is owned by George Meredith, the local MP for the Aleipata region. This little 'puppy' was the recipient of rock through the roof! The Tsunami had the power sufficient to drop a rock through the roof from several metres up.Note that the height of the Toyota Prado is less than half the height of the hole in the roof. A Prado is a big car - a Landcruiser - and the hole in the roof is about 4 metres up from the ground which would be 5 metres above sea level and 6 metres above low tide. Houses on either side of this Fale Samoa were totalled (nothing left but the concrete pads) and the wave ran inland here about 500 metres.
George's relatives are now relocated 500m inland and just past where the waves ran to. When we think of a Tsunami we tend to think of a wall of clean water. In fact debris is also a major force, especially as the wave drains away and comes back in again. One would have thought that rocks would be at the bottom of a wave but apparently Tsunamis have a swirling action. There would have been little chance for any elderly, the infirm or children not able to get inland in time.
Amazing also that the rest of the structure remained undamaged.
The Sagitoa Wharf
The above-mentioned MP campaigned in 2006 on completing the Sagitoa Wharf. Originally started 30 years ago and never completed, George undertook to have the works completed and this was actually done just a week before the Tsunami struck! Twisted metal reinforcing is all that remains of the wharf structure, and a 70 ton digger was swept into the deep of the lagoon. Major work is underway to reinstate the wharf.One of the two stabilising legs of a large barge was buckled in an instant - 20mm reinforced steel bent like a plastic toy. In this photo, two engineering gurus George Meredith (MP) and Scott Simôn (also one of our visiting Web Ambassadors) scratch their heads and try to calculate the enormous forces that
As Scott says, "An engineer could never have designed anything to cope with these forces! Simply amazing! Awe inspiring! I'm stunned speechless!" And he was, for hours as he pondered the power of angry water.
The photo shows the end of one half on the right, and the bent section on the left. The bent leg has since been gas-axed in half. The bend was approximately 30 degrees. The strength of the internal reinforcing can be seen on the left section.
Tsunami relief hut
In Fusi Safata, this family relocated to this makeshift hut after the big wave.While the island Fusitai (actually a thin peninsula that looks like an island) clearly saved them from the Tsunami, these people simply don't want to take any chances. Superstitious; overly careful; afraid; who knows but the consequences of death and destruction around them sent their whole family fleeing to their plantation.
In the Chilean earthquake scare months later Debbie and I were coincidentally witnesses to a second effort from this same family to relocate to this plantation area. For them, it is now a spiritual place; a place of haven.
Their perfectly good Fale a kilometre or so down the road may be given to another family member sometime. More than likely though they will have moved back to await the next Tsunami alert, and then they will flee again to their haven for a while.
These people now live under the cloud of fear - entirely thanks to the Tsunami.
Evacuation
On 7th December 2009, another Tsunami warning took place and Apia was evacuated - entirely. Imagine doing that in Auckland!
Chaos reigned and two lane bi-directional roads became three or four lanes in one direction. Apia came to a gridlock as thousands upon thousands of people came down from buildings, clogged the streets and went to higher ground. It was like trying to get a camel into the eye of a needle.Personally I thought the requirement to come down from office buildings and clog the streets was insanity. The way I saw it was that simply put the whole population in the path of any wave - almost like a deliberate decision to expose a large percentage of the population to mortal danger.
If a Tsunami had hit at the time that this photo was taken I estimate that perhaps four or five thousand people would have got very wet, and if it was anything like the one that hit the South Coast, I would expect there to have been many hundreds of people drowned.
Samoa needs to teach and authorise its people in the event of a Tsunami warning to find higher ground where ever this may be INCLUDING higher buildings. Evacuation of an entire city, even a relatively small South Pacific island city, especially bringing hundreds of people already on higher floors, could be a disaster waiting to happen. I doubt that anything will change however and recriminations will likely fly and again nothing will likely be done if adversity does strike again. Let's pray that it doesn't happen.
Coconuts Beach Resort
Coconuts was levelled.In the background you can see the building twisted and contorted. A nice resort well-known by Aussie and NZ travellers, rebuilding is underway.
As with anything on the Samoan coast now, I believe that it will never be the same again. I understand why Coconuts are rebuilding and I am all behind the rebuilding but it's for good reason that I predict low turnover in the future - nobody in their right mind would take their family to sit on a sandy beach in Paradise in case another Tsunami came again. If I lost my daughter in another wave I would be beside myself with guilt and would find it very hard to explain the decision to distraught relatives. People just consider a Samoan beach fale too risky now.
Most Kiwis will more than likely travel to the Gold Coast or to another place - maybe in the hills or plantations of Samoa, but definitely not the coast of Samoa. Maybe in another 5 or 10 years I might consider it. Until then, I would choose a place that the Tsunami didn't strike in 2009 for my holiday. It may be statistically the same chance of adversity but it will feel a thousand times safer.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for developing tourism post-Tsunami and have done a lot more than many to help*, but we must be realistic about future tourism prospects. Eco-Tourism; Volun-tourism; Cultural-tourism and adventure tourism are the future of Samoa now, not sitting back in a resort drinking and waiting for another wave to pounce.
This is a long-term impact, the Tsunami thing. As I've said before, easily the biggest South Pacific event since Pearl Harbour.
* Selling up the family home after 40 something years in the family, relocating home and business to Samoa, and establishing a Charitable Trust to develop inbound tourism without outside assistance is a major effort and commitment on my part. My medal should be on its way from somewhere sometime soon? The point is not that I'm an angel, it is more that I can say these things from a position from within trying to do positive things, rather than just being a nay-sayer from outside!
Tagwords: tsunami damage
