Flood

The riverbank at Purari airstrip.
The water had covered all the
ground on the right. (D.Petterson)

Before our recent work trip, we were aware that there had been flooding in the area where we were going. On July 11, 2014, The Post Courier reported that “continuous rain in Gulf Province has caused the rivers in the Purari delta to burst their banks, displacing 2006 people and destroyed 53 houses.” When we landed at Purari airstrip on July 30, intending to spend the next few weeks around the Purari delta, the impact of the flood was immediately evident.

At the river bank, the ground was still soft from where the flood had inundated usually dry areas. The steps to the boat had been partially washed away. As we travelled along the rivers, the flood scars were everywhere. River banks had subsided into the river, leaving trees poking out of the water or hanging at an angle. Trees which had been swept downstream piled up on river bends, where the force of the water had thrown them.

A slipped bank and fallen trees
(Photo R.Petterson)

As we visited villages, we heard stories of the flood. We did not visit anywhere that had lost their houses, but some had lost their gardens. When people are subsistence farmers, losing your garden is a big deal. It is like burning a small family business to the ground. As river people, they were still able to fish and find sago palms to convert to food, but that is a limited diet.

Another slipped riverbank

There were relief efforts happening in the area, coordinated by the Red Cross. At least once we passed a dinghy loaded up with rice on its way to affected villages. In other unaffected villages, people were hard at work making sago. The relief team was coming to purchase it to give to other villages. One village’s misfortune was proving profitable to those who had escaped.

Yesterday this was a well laid
path. Today it is a floating log
challenge.

Another bonus from the floods was the trees washed downstream. Men had been collecting these and were busy building new canoes. A shipyard would be hard pressed to beat the boat building industry I saw in the Gulf!

While we were in Gulf, there was a new round of flooding. The previous flooding had been primarily due to heavy rain upstream. This round was largely due to king tides. The village would flood twice a day, with the water subsiding in between. This did not have the force of the rain-induced flood, but it still insidiously brought salty water into gardens and villages where is was not welcome, damaging bridges and walkways. 

Although we went to Gulf knowing it was the wet season, the flooding meant that we saw and waded through it in about peak sogginess.