Program: Foreign Correspondent
Series: Pacific
Year of Production: 2004
Duration: 15mins
It used to be the most liveable city in Papua New Guinea - it’s now the most unbearable. Ten years after the volcanic eruption that devastated the former capital of East New Britain Province, life is still miserable. In this report, Papua New Guinea correspondent Shane McLeod travels to a city gasping for air.
The 1994 eruption of Tavurvur and its sister volcano Vulcan buried Rabaul under two metres of ash. The city was evacuated, and the PNG government set about relocating the capital to the nearby town of Kokopo. “Many people returned, but services haven’t been restored,” said McLeod. “Half of the town remains buried and abandoned”. McLeod visits nearby Matupit Island, where there’s no power, telephones and not even a school. Most of the people used to work in Rabaul- now so many are unemployed because they can’t afford to travel to the new capital of Kokopo.