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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