15 Jan 2010

Tent classrooms provided after Solomons quake

3:23 pm on 15 January 2010

Tents have been erected in the Solomon Islands to replace classrooms damaged by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the region last week.

Save the Children country director for the Solomons, Niamh Murnaghan, says more than 200 families are living in tents after their homes were declared unsafe.

Some children on Rendova Island will have another week off school while temporary tent classrooms are put up.

Murnaghan says the school was built of locally available materials with a banana leaf roof so it's likely that the community itself will be able to rehabilitate the school.

Relief efforts are focussing on providing water, food and tarpaulins for shelter, she says.