Earthquakes in Bougainville

from Bishop Bernard Unabali, 24 April:

"I send a brief report on the situation of earthquake in Bougainville in the last few days. The quake first struck Friday evening 4th April quite late past 10pm. That initial quake was reported from Buin, Piano area with a house collapse killing a child. Otherwise, there were unreported collapse of houses, land slides and cracks of some churches but one other one was a Ward in the Buka Hospital in the Northern part. 

The third and biggest scary one struck close to 11-12 midnight on Saturday 19th of April ; Easter Vigil hours. In the North it was felt like 7-8 on the R scale. So in the South West it was felt really more? The places where mass/services started early got caught on their return and the ones who had late starts or second mass (shortages of priests) were caught in the churches. So imagine what happened. Some left only the priests and a few inside at elevation! Others had homilies cut short. 



One place was at blessing of the baptismal water and the shaking of the water had the priest 'baptized ' rather than the babies! Lucky no priests ran away from the people. Reports so far show another dead and churches in the south cracked, statues, tabernacles, cross, walls and floor foundations. And more people's houses and gardens destroyed by landslides. In Torokina , West Coast Bougainville there was sea rise that went into two to three coastline villages who had to move Inland in a scramble. Some rivers are dirty as land slides damned them up. We do not have a diocese level Caritas properly set up. It is the same In parishes but we are already making plans to do that some months down the line this year. And for what these quakes have damaged we are organizing to collect data through informants from remote areas and site visits where possible.
Thanks to all! Bishop Bernard Unabali, Bougainville"

(Source: Social Concerns)