Report from drought
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
stricken Micronesia
In Micronesia, drought this year
has brought heavy crop damage
and serious public health prob lems, including an increase in infectious hepatitis.
A visiting U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency team was told in June that some islands are running out of drink ing water, at least a quarter of the food crops have been lost, and half the coconut harvest, the ma jor cash crop, has been affected.
The agency was considering whether an emergency should be declared in the Federated States of Micronesia islands of Ponape, Truk, Yap and Kosrae, Mr Ehson Johnson, the agency’s dis aster control officer, said at the time.
In Guam, with a population of 110,000, officials planned to shut off the water to selected villages one day a week to con
serve dwindling water supplies.
Also, grass fires have been pos
ing a major problem.
A report prepared for the agen cy says that on Yap, which nor mally receives 279 cm of rain a year, only 13.2 cm had fallen since January 1. Water for the
5500 residents of the FSM capit al, Kolonia, was being pumped from a swamp, trucked to town and chlorinated before distribu tion, Mr Johnson said.
Yap’s subsistence crops have been reduced by 25 per cent. If the drought continued for another month, about 85 per cent of the crop would be lost, Mr Johnson said. In the outer islands of Yap, where about 3200 people live,
supplementary feeding programs have been started.
Coconut exports are expected to be down 50 per cent this year, Mr Johnson said.
In Truk, where 42,000 people are still recovering from a chol era outbreak last year, health officials report that diarrhoea cases are at a “near epidemic stage” and hepatitis is on the rise.
There is not enough water for adequate sanitation, officials said.
In the Mortlock Islands of Truk, population 10,000, all wells have been contaminated by salt water and are drying during low tides, officials said. The Mortlock taro crop is mostly in edible and the breadfruit supply close to exhaustion.
Ponape, which usually re ceives 457 cm of rain a year, had received only 18 cm since De cember. A slight increase in in fectious hepatitis cases and a major increase in diarrhoea has occurred since the drought be gan. Ponape Hospital had stopp ed all but emergency surgery because of the shortage of water, and all public schools had been closed since April.