In March 2019 strong torrential rainfall in Jayapura on Papua caused some landslides which then caused some flash floods in the close by airport city Sentani. 113 people were registered dead, 94 were missing and 11.000 people were displaced.
We arrived in the first days of May, 6 weeks later with our bags full of medicines and water filter on a rainy day. The first after arrival we were driven to see the impact of the flash floods.
The airport city Sentani is build on the foot hills of Cyclop Mountain. A very steep and inaccessible mountain that is almost over the city. The main road and therefore all human infrastructure was build along these mountain range and cross all the rivers coming from there and discharge into Lake Sentani.
Land slides are quite common in tropical mountain areas. A complete forest ground cover is actually the best way of minimizing this kind of erosion. But if strong rain comes together with some kind of strong wind, then it can happen that the roots of large trees get flipped out from the heavy and wet soil on the slopes and causing land slides.
If more extreme weather events will happen more frequently, then it will cause more often landslides.
What makes landslides extreme dangerous is that they mainly appear when all the rivers also discharging the water sheds. If a landslide then is blocking a water discharge, the water will be blocked until this natural dam will fail. All the collected water together with the material of the landslide will then rapidly discharge down the hill. This discharge is then is grinding through the landscape and everything else that is on the way.
It happened to me while I was walking through a destructed village, that I could suddenly imagine to sit at night in a blackout in my little self build wooden house, all my family close around me and that noise from the river behind the house makes us unable to understand each other. I could hear and even feel the grinding boulder stones how they rolling passing the house and they are eating and grinding the neighbor houses. – It really must have been horror for the people.
While we were there we also visited some communities. Here we visited an orphanage with almost 30 kids and teenager. At this moment they all lived in the old wooden while the construction of the new building did pause. We had a really beautiful moving fellowship.
We visited a christian school where we installed together with our friends from YWAM Sentani a tank and water filter to supply the school with clean drinking water for the students. We had a lot of fun.
Very impressive was our approach to the villages around lake Sentani. The heavy rains have caused the raise of the water level to 1.5 m over normal. Around 20 villages build more ore less on the water were effected. The highest water level can be seen at the color of the house walls.
The life in these villages while the flood is difficult. When we were there some rooms and houses were still flooded. Beside a lot of their possessions were destroyed, skin diseases and digestive problems were common, and the everyday supply over the lake was difficult. We brought water filter and medicines.
We have made friends especially at YWAM. Good guys who got trained there to be able one day to serve in the mountain villages. Up to the mountains they also will bring our water filters, so the people there will have clean drinking water as well.
