Flash flooding killed at least six people and left 10,500 homeless in the Solomon Islands’ capital, Honiara, yesterday, with 30 missing and the death toll set to rise, officials said.
The government declared a state of emergency after the city’s main river, the Matanikau, burst its banks late on Thursday, sweeping away entire communities, bringing down bridges and inundating the downtown area.
“This is the worst disaster the nation has seen,” the Solomons Star newspaper said.
Save the Children’s Solomons development program director Rudaba Khondker described the situation as “dire.”
Khondker said 16 evacuation centers had been set up in schools to provide shelter for 10,500 homeless people, a huge proportion of the population in a city of only 70,000.
“It’s a logistical challenge,” she said, adding that roads had been cut and communications were patchy.
“The east side [of the city] is tough to reach and in the west side we’re still carrying out assessments,” she said.
She said dengue fever, already common on the Solomons, was a concern in the evacuation camps.
The National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) put the official death toll at six yesterday, with 30 listed as missing, although some reports said the number of fatalities had already reached 16.
“The figures, all the figures, are expected to go up,” NDMO spokesman Sipuru Rove said.
He said the Solomons had declared a state of emergency, but not yet asked for assistance from overseas, adding that such a request could be made at any time.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) regional director Sune Gudnitz said the flooding followed days of heavy rain which was still falling.
“The water has not subsided and flood waters are continuing to build,” he said.
Fiji-based Gudnitz said OCHA was ready to provide assistance, but at the moment the Solomons’ government was “firmly in the driver’s seat” in the emergency response.
Gudnitz said there was still virtually no information from areas of Guadalcanal outside Honiara, and it was likely communities elsewhere had also been severely affected.
Australia updated its travel advice for the Solomons warning the flooding had closed Honiara’s Henderson International Airport and cut roads throughout the capital.
The advisory also said there had been reports of looting in the city’s Chinatown area.
New Zealand announced NZ$300,000 (US$257,000) in aid and said it was ready to provide further assistance if asked.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in