The Solomons Shook

Tragedy And Comedy When

At least 32 people were either killed or reported missing in the April 21 earthquake in the Solomon Islands, according to local authori ties.

PIM correspondent Jim Boutilier writes from Honiara: At 10.43 in the morning the town was rocked by a short, sharp ’quake which measured 7.25 on the Richter scale.

There had been two minor tremors earlier in the morning, which many people had failed even to notice.

But the major shock sent them flee ing in panic from their offices, homes and shops.

Stephen Yee was outside the Customs Department when he saw “a great wave running across the bitumen road”. It seemed about a foot high. Skyline Ridge, overlook ing the Matanikau River, “moved like the mast of a ship”, said one woman secretary, who was amazed that she felt seasick from the mo tion.

Typesetters and apprentices bolted from their machines in the Melanesian Mission’s Provincial Press, the staff of the Tourist Authority raced from their desks on the second floor of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building as fil ing cabinets began to rock back and forth crazily, and Stephen Loloito from Ulawa was flung from his car penter's perch, into the basement of the building he was working on.

Damage was relatively minor, but two buildings were particularly hard hit. The five-storey Hong Kong and Shanghai office was badly damaged. “It was all trembling, shaking, and the third time we ran out,” one teller said. Three of the six heavy plate glass windows at the front of the bank were shattered, large pieces of concrete flaked away from the facade, and a great jagged fissure appeared in the load-bearing wall of the external stairwell. The strongroom and rear entrance of the bank were heavily damaged a*nd tiles were torn from the stairs as the building was contorted by the earth’s movements.

The concrete block warehouse of the M. P. Kwan Trading Company in Chinatown collapsed in a jumble

of wreckage as if smashed by a mighty hand. Over $A60,000 worth of supplies, in the form of boxes of corned beef, instant coffee, steel wool pads and soap lay scattered or crushed under the crumpled corru gated iron roof.

An hour or so later almost every thing was back to normal. People were still congregated in front of the bank building, which was guarded by two constables, while Public

Works Department personnel sur veyed the damage. But the rest of Honiara had resumed its normal routine. Mothers were waiting in their Mini-mokes outside Woodford School for their children, regulars were gathered at the Mendana Hotel for lunch, and knots of people were sitting in the shade by the market place.

There were several more tremors during the afternoon. But none of

"...as if smashed by a mighty hand" —J.P. Kwan Trading Company's warehouse.

Photo: Jim Boutilier.

them matched the one in the morn ing which a Malaitan friend of mine described succinctly as “a big one and it make people run away”.

Peter L. Young reports for PIM on one humorous sidelight to the quake: A high school headmaster had been trying for several months to get a number of his school’s buildings insured. On April 21, after the second tremor, he drove into Honiara and demanded that the policy be finalised there and then.

The insurance clerk wanted to delay the matter as he believed that pre miums would be going up. After the

headmaster pointed out that the deal had been waiting to be clinched for three months, and that this ap parent reneging would reflect badly on the company, the agent saw the point.

The policy was completed on that day and the happy head returned triumphantly to his school to be in time for the third tremor. Unfor lunately, on closer reading of the policy the next day, he realised that the policy did not include earth quake damage ... So it was back to square one for one Solomon Islands headmaster.

The RAAF Iroquois helicopter engaged in relief and rescue work following the April earthquake in the Solomons caused some unfore seen problems.

A policeman told PI M’s corres pondent that some villagers had been frightened when they saw the helicopter and its military-looking personnel. T tink olgeta tink war him come moa, ia?” he grinned. ‘The people seemed surprised that we were leaving food for them,” said another policeman.

Landslides caused by the quake killed at least 12 people in the Guadalcanal highlands and damag ed rice silos of Brewer Solomons Associates about 18 miles from Honiara. An operation at Honiara hospital was successfully completed in the midst of the major tremor on April 21 the quake put a large crack through the floor of the theatre as the operating team work ed.