austraLasia
#1802
Tsunami did strike part of
Alotau island, says bishop
ALOTAU (Milne Bay PNG): 5th April 2007
-- Bishop Francesco Panfilo
writes to follow up a reference in an earlier austraLasia that news reports
indicate the effects of Monday's undersea earthquake and tsunami were felt in
the outlier islands of PNG's south eastern Milne Bay province. News
reports indicated that a family of vie were lost, presumed drowned. Bishop
Panfil says the tsunami struck Rossel Island in his diocese of Alotau-Sideia,
and that the first news from Jinjo (the mission centre on Rossel) was not
good. Feared lost was a family and the father was well-known to the
mission as carpenter and builder - he had just finished building a chapel at
East Point, also hit by the tsunami. News that filtered through later,
however, indicated that the family was found, and three babies also reported
missing were found as well. The remaining missing persons on the island, a woman
and child, were found still later. A number of homes made of bush
materials were destroyed, the diocese lost a few bags of cement, but no human
loss thanks be to God.
Bishop Panfilo is only the third
bishop of what is now the Alotau-Sideia diocese, the first two being MSCs..
Prior to 1975 the diocese had been a vicariate apostolic, then the diocese of
Sideia. The diocese covers 20,000 square kilometres, much of this islands
in an area once known to the world as the Trobriand Islands. Nearly 16% of the
population of 225,000 is Catholic.
Meanwhil in the Solomon
Islands, the official death toll has reached 28 people, including the death of
the local Uniting Church Bishop and three worshippers on Simbo island, when the
tsunami swept through the Church during an ordination
ceremony.
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