One province to the north of the Oro province, Morobe, had an earthquake in it’s capitol Lae. It would be good if things were to settle down now.

Netherlands below the sealevel, but PNG is being flooded. Getting afraid here…to go back

Oro floods toll 71 … and rising

THE magnitude of the devastation in Oro Province is far reaching, Governor Suckling Tamana-bae said after a whirlwind tour of the province by helicopter yesterday. Mr Tamanabae made an emotional plea to the National Government to declare a state of emergency in the province.
The entire province from Kokoda to Ambasi in the Sohe electorate to Tufi and Afore in Ijivitari electorate the Higaturu Oil Palm blocks and Popondetta town had been severely hit and as of yesterday 71 deaths were reported while 55 people were reported missing.
Mr Tamanabae also appealed to international aid donors and the people of Papua New Guinea for help. He said the calamities brought on by flash floods following rain caused by Cyclone Guba supercede the 1952 Mount Lamington volcanic eruption because the entire province is affected.
He said thousands of people will succumb to sickness and starvation and die within the next few days if a relief operation is delayed.
In a briefing with the Governor last night in Popondetta, health authorities expressed fear about the possibility of an outbreak of water borne diseases like cholera, dysentery, diarrhoea and malaria because of the lack of clean drinking water and proper sanitation.
Provincial health authorities have contacted Port Moresby for urgent medical supplies.
Mr Tamanabae said a disaster relief trust fund will be set up immediately and a team will be put in place to manage and distribute food, medicine, shelter, blankets, cooking utensils, and clean drinking water.
He distributed some food to parts of the province yesterday by helicopter.
Food supplies bought with K100,000 from the provincial govenment will start today.
Postcourier today

Before I left for PNG a friend gave me sjroep.nl and he had this domain in his administration. The blog itself runs with another friend. Don’t ask me to explain this…just accept it, because it involves rather boring technicalities.
At the moment I’m in the process of getting de blog under my own administration. The friend is therefore declaiming the domain now. That means that sjroep.nl will stop existing…for a while. I’m going to claim it again (if no evildoer claims it before I do it and demands and exorbitant amount of money) with another host provider. You will be able to view the blog via www.sjroep.mayaxatl.org in the meanwhile.

This happened several times to me as well. Air Nuigini is the only airline in PNG that flies everywhere in PNG. There are some others, but they either not for the general public (mines) or they cover a very small area of PNG. Effectively the only one I dare say. Prices are extremely high. This does unfortunately not mean that services are always up to scratch. Well…that is an understatement; almost every time I had to overnight in Port Moresby (capital), because the connecting flight did not go. Now it has even become worse…

Bedless capital city
CAPITAL city seems to be in a perpetual state of “no vacancies” for beds in hotels, lodges and inns. One more company reports nothing available for mid-week, even at the lowliest fleabag places. Last we heard, nearly 70 rooms a night are taken up by disrupted PX passengers. Is it true Air Niugini flew some to Lae last week because there were no rooms in NCD?
Post Courier today

In Singapore now waiting for the flight straight to Amsterdam. Wasn’t that lucky last time.

I’m going to miss this for almost three months. Yuch, luckily I’ll be distracted by a lot of traveling around the Netherlands and meeting up with friends otherwise I would be sad to the power of ten.

I’m sitting at VSO’s office in Madang waiting for my exit interview. I already saw a flaw in the info I gave; I gave you the wrong flight number. SQ instead of FQ.
It is flight:
SQ324 arriving at 7.05am from Singapore on the 23rd of October at Schiphol airport.

Arrival at Amsterdam airport:
23rd of October 2007
Flight FQ324 at 7.05 am

I will state changes in the flight plan on the blog.