On the first anniversary of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption two men share how they survived when they were unable to escape the tsunami that followed.

On 15 January 2022, the usually quiet seaside village of Kanokupolu was thrown into chaos.

The roar of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupting was followed by screams and shouts of people fleeing to safety.

Villagers took to their vehicles to escape, and as they drove away, tsunami waves could be seen approaching the beach.

But not everyone decided to leave — Tevita ‘Amaka preferred to risk death, rather than run away.

“I was ready to die, if I were to die, I would die in peace, because I am not afraid of the ocean, the ocean is my home,” said ‘Amaka, a 60-year-old man who lives alone, less than 200m from the shore.

“I remember so clearly how my children came to take me away but I refused to be forced out of my home and told them to leave me,” he added.

Two loud explosions
The eruption generated a sound that could be heard as far away as Alaska. NASA estimated the explosion to be more than 500 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, creating waves that reached up to 90 metres in height.

“There were two loud explosions and then the ash and small rocks started raining down following the ashes were small rocks. I looked up and saw the electric poles swaying from side to side,” ‘Amaka said.

“I told them that if this is my time then I’ll accept it wholeheartedly. They gave up and eventually left . . . the ocean has been a big part of my life so I don’t see a reason to be scared.”

Then came the tsunami waves, uprooting trees and destroying entire houses. Before the waves hit, ‘Amaka took shelter behind a mango tree and waited for his fate. He had spent his whole life living in Kanokupolu and was prepared to die there as well.

But miraculously, the mango tree stood its ground.

According to ‘Amaka, it was divine intervention that saved him.

“The tsunami came, taking down the electric poles, trees and a very big container. It destroyed everything except for me, not a single drop of water touched me and that was the work of God.”

“I guess God still has plans for me to be here.”

As well as ‘Amaka’s miraculous survival, there were no fatalities in Kanokupolu. Across Tonga only three deaths were recorded, in relation to the eruption, despite the magnitude of the eruption and the following tsunami.

Tonga’s ‘Aqua man’

Equally miraculous as ‘Amaka’s survival was the case of Lisala Folau, from the small island of ‘Atata.

The 57-year-old grandfather, who relies on a cane to walk, was unable to reach higher ground in time to escape the tsunami and was swept out to sea.

“When I heard the loud bangs, I went outside my house. I thought it was thunder at first, but then I heard people chattering about getting to higher ground,” Folau said.

‘Atata boasts just one village, with a population of about 70 people. The island’s interior consists of high cliffs, which provided protection against the tsunami.

Folau told his family to help get the others to high ground and to return to help him when everyone was safe.

“It was so difficult for me to walk and I couldn’t climb up the cliffs, so I told them to get everyone to safety first, and then come back for me.”

Folau’s brother and nephew returned to help him, but by then the waves had breached the beach and began smashing the village. Realising it was too late, they decided to climb up a mango tree.

Second wave came
“The second wave came, so we decided to climb up the fau tree because we couldn’t get away in time.

“The waves were fast and strong, and we had to climb higher as they got bigger.

“When it calmed, we climbed back down and headed for higher ground…”

As Folau, his nephew and brother waded through the flooded island, a huge wave suddenly appeared. He told them to run for it and braced for the wave.

“I reckon it was 8m or more. I couldn’t fight back the wave, so I just let it sweep me, hoping it would bring me back. I was forced underwater several times before grabbing on to a branch.”

Folau spent the entire night, struggling to stay afloat in the open sea. Luckily for him, volcanic ash rain heated the ocean significantly, keeping him warm.

“I felt the ash falling, and the sea felt so much warmer. My hair was full of ash and rocks.”

Struggling to breathe
“The water was very warm so I didn’t struggle with the cold, but I was struggling to breathe above water.

“While I was lost, I was too distracted to feel thirsty, exhausted to feel anything. I was too distracted by the thought to survive to live.”

Folau ended on a tiny atoll, less than a hectare size. It was almost bare; tsunami waves having stripped away most of the trees.

Unable to get the attention of rescue boats, Folau decided to swim to the nearby shore of Tonga’s main island, Tongatapu, which is just under an hour’s boat ride away.

He ended up at a beach at the end of Nuku’alofa, exhausted and drained of energy.

“At that point, my body was weak, and I could barely push myself up. I used a piece of wood to walk, I made my self walk towards the main road and waited. A car picked me up and driver was shocked when I told him I was from ‘Atata.”

Later on, Folau arrived at a relative’s home on Tongatapu where his evacuated family was staying. They were overjoyed to see him alive.

“I eventually found my family staying at a relative’s house. They were planning my funeral and had told my wife who was in Australia at the time that I was dead. My family stayed up all night singing hymns because I had miraculously survived.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

If it was not for his friend who broke into his home after he was gasping for air, Antonio Ratuvili would be among dozens of Fijians who have died from covid-19 this year.

Ratuvili was “grey-faced spectra, gasping for every breath, and in a thoroughly confused state” on his deathbed when his friend found him.

Within an hour he found himself in the “red zone” part of the Colonial War Memorial (CWM) Hospital in Fiji’s capital Suva.

“As soon as I arrived, the staff gathered around me and, as they poked and prodded and adjusted my oxygen supply, they looked like curious, oversized insects in their masks and visors: bees, say, or ants,” he told Asia Pacific Report.

“There was no exit, or at least anything that could be seen from where I was lying, no longer a larval mass — just an overweight, utterly extenuated human male.

“Of course, I couldn’t see the entire room because, like Gulliver in Lilliput, I was pinned down by an elaborate system of tubes and wiring.”

The battle depends solely on his immune system because he has not received his AstraZeneca vaccine that everybody in Fiji is entitled to.

‘Drips and bleeping instruments’
“The ants (healthcare workers) might have abandoned me, but they had tethered my body to a variety of monitors and drips and bleeping instruments, and I was still being fed oxygen through a large, clear face mask – which suggested that, at some point, somebody would turn up, to do whatever remained to be done,” he said.

“This all seemed to be happening in a makeshift theatre of managed chaos, like a scene from Casualty or an alien abduction movie. Then, just as suddenly, it was quiet.

“I was alone and the sealed room was quiet. It was a veritable study in solipsism: I existed, I was sentient, but nothing else was certain.”

The 25-year-old faith-based NGO worker battled covid-19 for 17 days together with 10,033 other patients in dedicated facilities around the nation.

He was discharged from CWM hospital on Wednesday.

“Today, I am still breathing, and with the right medication and support, I may continue to do so for some time. But I remember all too vividly the sensation of not being able to breathe. That sensation is as close as I have ever come to existential panic.

“I survived by the grace of God.

Greatest teaching
He added the lesson learnt would be the greatest teaching he has ever had.

Ratuvili said he got the virus because of his ignorance of the symptoms of the virus. He was under the assumption that he was having a somewhat “normal flu”.

“This was my original mistake. Though it made sense from one angle, it was still an assumption, a self-fulfilling diagnosis based on a mix of anecdote and magical thinking.

“Still, it seemed reasonable enough, at the time. I was fighting for breath, any physical activity was an effort, I had been suffering for weeks from a dry, nagging cough and, though these could have been symptoms of anything — from a common cold, to bronchitis, to the unforeseen combination of ‘co-morbidities’ that, over the next several days, almost killed me — I had resolved upon coronavirus.

“Self-diagnosis, followed by self-medication. As with so many men my age, this seemed infinitely preferable to seeing a doctor.”

Fiji fights delta variant
Like New South Wales and Vioctoria in Australia, Fiji is fighting the delta variant of the virus that has caused the current outbreak since April 19 this year with 12,596 people having contracted the virus and 69 deaths in just less than four months.

So far, only 2535 people have recovered.

In a statement on Wednesday, Health Secretary Dr James Fong revealed that national seven-day average daily test positivity was 18 percent and was continuing on an upward trend, ahead of the five percent threshold set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

By definition from the WHO, it means that the there is a widespread transmission in the country.

“208,343 samples have been tested since this outbreak started in April 2021, with 251,204 tested since testing began in early 2020. 3313 tests have been reported for July 12th,” he said.

“Sadly, people with severe covid-19 are still dying at home or they are coming to a medical facility in the late stages of severe illness.

“Severe covid-19 is a medical emergency, and a delay in receiving appropriate medical treatment reduces your chance of recovering from the disease.”

Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Sex workers have urged the Papua New Guinea government to pass a law to protect them after one of them was recently gang-raped, beaten and left to die on a roadside in the capital of Port Moresby.

One told The National: “Yes, she is a prostitute. We all are. And we have our reasons why we are in this trade.

“But we are also Papua New Guineans. We are also human.”

The sex workers, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that their identities not be  revealed because they could end up in trouble with the law, said they were forced into the trade not by choice but as a matter of survival.

One said they sold their bodies “for a living out of necessity” knowing there was no law to protect them.

They are afraid to report to police inhumane and cruel acts inflicted on them by men who pay for their services because they can end up in trouble.

“My friend was brutally gang raped. She had to have her [private parts] stitched. She was beaten to the point where she nearly died,” one said.

‘Good Samaritan’ helped victim
She said if not for a “Good Samaritan who found her and rushed her to the hospital”, the co-worker might not be living today to tell her story.

“She can’t even lodge a complaint because prostitution is illegal. We have no rights [protection].

“We can be murdered tomorrow and no one will care because we are prostitutes.

“But [people must remember] that we are also human beings and we are also Papua New Guineans.”

The 24-year-old victim said she was paid to spend an hour with the client.

He took her to a lodge in Port Moresby where eight men raped her. She told of how she called out for help but heard people outside laughing at her.

“No one helped me even though I screamed for help. There were people outside. I could hear them laughing and saying [that I was a prostitute]. Yes, I was paid for one hour with one client only.”

Previous protection bill defeated
“In 2016, a motion to protect sex workers tabled in Parliament by then Sumkar MP Ken Fairweather met strong opposition. It was defeated.

In February this year, Justice Minister and Attorney-General Davis Steven said the position of the law on prostitution in PNG was not clear.

He was waiting for the State Solicitor “to give me specific legal support on matters like that”.

Community Development, Religion and Youth Department acting Secretary Pala Yondi earlier said the department was concerned about sex workers who were abused, assaulted and raped because there were no laws to protect them.

Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and Solomon Islands Bishop Rochus Tatamai blamed the increase in sex workers on the current “economic crisis”.

The Pacific Media Centre republishes The National articles with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A book excerpt published by The Guardian narrates the survival of six shipwrecked Tongan boys on an island for 15 months in 1965. The story received more than seven million hits in just four days, but some Tongans have pointed out that the story, which foregrounds the point of view of the Australian sailor who rescued the teenagers, lacks a Pacific voice.

The Guardian story, ‘The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months,’ was published on May 9 and immediately went viral, attracting the attention of filmmakers and global leaders.

The book from which it is excerpted is Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman.

READ MORE: The real Tongan boys of ‘Ata were not the real boys of Lord of the Flies

Bregman recounted how Tongan teenagers Sione, Stephen, Kolo, David, Luke and Mano survived on the depopulated ‘Ata island for 15 months by relying on each other after their boat was destroyed by a storm. They were rescued by Australian sailor Peter Warner.

Bregman contrasted the story of the six Tongans with the tragic fate of the characters in the popular 1954 novel Lord of the Flies by British author William Golding. In the novel, the children survive a plane crash and end up on a remote Pacific island.

Some of them become violent, with fatal consequences.

For Bregman, the story of the six Tongans offers a more positive view of humanity:

It’s time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other.

The Guardian story was picked up by the local press in Tonga. Through the Matangi Tonga Online, we learned that the full names of the six teenagers are Kolo Fekitoa, Sione Fataua, “David” Tevita Siola’a, “Stephen” Fatai Latu, Mano Totau, and Luke Veikoso.

Not all are happy with the story published by The Guardian. In an ABC Australia audio interview Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi, a Tongan author and storyteller, took issue with the story’s “colonial lens”.

She felt there was too much focus on the Australian rescuer while omitting reference to the island’s history of colonialism (which is why it was depopulated), and the local belief systems that could explain why the boys behaved the way they did.

She expressed frustration that a foreigner owns the rights to the story about what happened to the six teenagers, which is well-known in the Tongan community.

Gesa-Fatafehi added that understanding Tongan history and the values promoted in the community would have made readers see that the Western novel Lord of the Flies provided an inaccurate counterpoint to the story of the six teenagers.

In a widely-shared Twitter thread, Gesa-Fatafehi elaborated her other concerns:

Samoan journalist Tahlea Aualiitia also commented:

On Twitter, Janet. U revealed that her grandfather is one of the six castaways and posted the following appeal to the public:

Bregman responded to the Twitter thread of Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi by pointing out that The Guardian excerpt did not include his interview with Mano and Sione.

He said he also tackled the history of slavery on the island.

On May 13, The Guardian published an interview with Mano. The article quoted Mano and Bregman, who clarified that Warner did not benefit financially from the story of the rescue.

Gesa-Fatafehi posted a rejoinder to Bregman’s point that the story is not about racism or colonialism but resilience and interracial friendship:

She wrote a longer piece summarizing the points she raised on her Twitter thread:

The original article could’ve done more for the six men. The story should have been told by a Tongan. The story should have been told by the men themselves and their families. This is their story, will always be their story. The article doesn’t mention how the boys felt or why they made the choices they made. It lacked their perspective. It lacked the very Tongans the story was about, with the exception of Mano. But even then, Mano was sidelined. He deserves to share his story how he would want to.

Gesa-Fatafehi said in the ABC Australia interview that if ever a film were to be made about the six teenagers, her advice is to hire a local crew and incorporate local perspectives in sharing the story to the world.

Mong Palatino is regional editor for Southeast Asia of Global Voices, an activist and two-term member of the Philippine House of Representatives. He has been blogging since 2004 at mongster’s nest.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz