2 Mar 2013

Urgent counselling needed for Solomons disaster victims

9:32 am on 2 March 2013

The Disaster Management Office in Solomon Islands says there is an urgent need for counselling and information for the 3,000 people displaced to hillside camps by last month's earthquake and tsunami.

A Programme Officer, Sipuru Rove, says aid agencies in Temotu Province are working together in the distribution of food and water to the affected people.

But he says many of the homeless are too scared to return to their villages.

He says heavy rain over the past week, the threat of cyclones and ongoing aftershocks are all hampering recovery and adding to people's stress.

"The people from what we've seen, they are not settling down. They are still living in fear. What we really need to do is to really get these fears, I mean, diffused from the minds of these people, the affected people."

Sipuru Rove says relief teams have visited the camps in an effort to secure taupaulins and help people feel safer but the daily downpours are a persistent hinderance.