An unforgettable encounter in Papua New Guinea
When a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rattled the country, the World Food Programme (WFP) provided relief. Months later, this is what is happening on the ground.
As I walk toward the village square, a piece of wrapping on the ground catches my attention. Its colours, white and blue, in stark contrast with the brown soil, look familiar to me. Moving closer to it, I realize it is exactly what I thought: a piece of wrapping of WFP’s High-Energy Biscuits. I am in Yalanda, a village in the Southern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea.
A bunch of huts and shacks sit on top of a mountain at an altitude of about 1,500 metres. Forty miles west, lies the epicentre of the 7.5-magnitude earthquake that on 26 February struck this region. Much closer, only a few miles away, are the epicentres of two 6.7-magnitude aftershocks.
Flying over the area, we see a few people waving at us. For the past few months, the sound of a helicopter signaled the arrival of food and relief items. Airlifts were the only way WFP could reach Yalanda which — like hundreds, perhaps even thousands of other villages in Papua New Guinea — is not accessible by road. Following the earthquake, the situation got even worse as footbridges and trails collapsed. Today, the village still remains isolated.
Upon landing, the people from Yalanda welcome us with big smiles followed by many “thank yous” as a village leader introduces me, pointing at the WFP logo on my t-shirt. I came here with a journalist and a camera operator from Radio New Zealand. An elder explains that the community has been living here for centuries but, after the earthquake, many villagers had no choice but to move to safer places.
They had never experienced an earthquake. Situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire — an area with many active volcanoes — Papua New Guinea is prone to earthquakes and is at high risk of tsunamis. But this mountain region had never shaken before, catching its people by surprise. Many of the shacks collapsed, including the medical hut. Others slid off the ridge of the mountain, a local woman told the journalist, adding that the kids were shocked and felt sick.
A few minutes after our arrival, other villagers join us in the village square, which overlooks a breath-taking panorama on Lake Kutubu and the surrounding highlands. Not too far from the lake’s shores, is Moro airstrip and heliport, where WFP set up a prefabricated storage unit to store food and relief items.
That small airport served as WFP’s staging area to airlift supplies and food to the people affected by the earthquake. WFP distributed 372 metric tons of food, including High-Energy Biscuits, rice and canned tuna to almost 34,000 people, and over 11.5 metric tons of non-food items on behalf of other humanitarian organizations.
I take the piece of wrapping with me. Later on, I found out that those High-Energy Biscuits and the prefabricated storage units arrived in Papua New Guinea through the UN Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD). This made that keepsake even more special for me; I often show the biscuits and the storage tents to students visiting UNHRD Brindisi, and finally, I had the opportunity to witness them ‘in action’.
Holding that piece of wrapping tight in my hand, I look at the people from Yalanda waving goodbye to us and as the helicopter takes off, a song goes through my head: “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough…”
And as I think of the song, I add: “to keep WFP from reaching those in need.”
Based at the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) in Brindisi, Italy, I recently travelled to Papua New Guinea where I joined the WFP-led Logistics Working Group for seven weeks. This story was originally published in Italian on Storie dal WFP.
Learn more about the UN Humanitarian Response Depot.
