Typhoid and skin diseases are rife, malnutrition is on the rise, while, in remote areas, schools and medical centres have been shut down because there is no clean water.

Drought and frosts have wiped out subsistence crops in PNG's highlands, where villagers are facing months without food if they do not receive help.

Mt Hagen's Archbishop Douglas Young described the situation as dire with thousands of highland people in distress as their food gardens were destroyed, and now floods were having an impact.

"First it was frost and drought, now heavy rain and flooding," he said.

"It's one extreme to another.

"Across the archdiocese, most of my people are short of sweet potato so they are short of their staple.

"In the high risk, high altitude areas it will be months before the next crop comes on line."

About one million people live in PNG's highlands.

Many people live in isolated villages with no means of transport in or out. This is also the case in border areas like the vast Western Province.

"The real issue is whether people have roads. It is the remote areas that don't participate in the cash economy they are most affected," Archbishop Young said.

"If they are able to market other crops, they are able to get money and buy the food they need."

Archbishop Young said getting emergency food to remote villages was slow, and government distribution attempts were "not very successful".

"The Government is stuck with bureaucrats," he said.

"We were able to use our parish structure - people on the ground everywhere, volunteers and service providers.

"But sometimes the logistics overwhelm everybody. The cost of transport is twice as much as the food itself."

Sources

• Catholic Leader
• Image: ABC

The Salesians through Salesian Missions, Australia, have funded the manufacture of drum ovens, tables and chairs for the victims of the recent floods in Solomon Islands.

The machine fitting students at Don Bosco Technical Institute are making drum ovens for the most needy families in the Foxwood and Nalibiu area.

The carpentry students will be making tables and chairs for the Tumurora Primary School.

240 flood victims from the Foxwood and Nalibiu areas, and from Tumurora Primary School, spent 15 days at the Don Bosco Technical School.

They were all transported back to their homes on 23rd April by the Guadalcanal Province.

Aid agencies provided them with tools and food to help them clean up their homes, and to help them to start re-planting their gardens and rebuilding their lives.

Fr Ambrose Pereira says that while rehabilitation goes on, there is a need to work out long term solutions to deal with disasters - natural or man-made.

More important, the task of reconstruction needs forward planning and committed action over the months and the years ahead.

"Without doubt, education plays an important part in the ability to assist and deal with difficulties and disasters."

Pereira says it is also important that infrastructure specifications are clear and that building codes are adhered to.

"We are grateful to all who have assisted in several ways to ensure that those affected are able to deal amicably with the situation," he said.

Source

• Supplied by Fr Ambrose Pereira
• ANS
• Image: Supplied by Fr Ambrose Pereira

Was it biblical? Was it the least biblical Bible movie ever made?

These questions flare up in what is frankly a flat and over-rehearsed debate about the Bible in [Western] life.

Honestly, does it matter whether a movie is biblical? Do the spiritual-but-not-religious care?

Do those evangelicals who grow tired of the stereotype made of them in the media care? Do secular liberals who have no use for the Bible really care about these questions?

We can ask a better question, a more crucial and more meaningful question, "Why does The Flood continue to work as a powerful cultural story?"

Indeed, The Flood is one of the most ancient and oft recycled stories in world cultures.

In looking at The Flood today, we participate in thousands of years of meaning-making.

We connect ourselves to world literature, to ancient civilisations, and to a perennial story about a cataclysm that changed the world. Continue reading.

Source: Religion Dispatches

Image: Reading Cinemas

Hundreds of pilgrims who had come to visit the famous grotto where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to a peasant girl in 1858 had to be evacuated after heavy flooding hit the area on Saturday, Agence France Presse reported.

Work to clear 20 centimetres of mud on the esplanade in front of the grotto continued on Monday. Pilgrims were told that they would have to wait until Tuesday for the grotto to reopen.

The AFP report, however, said visitors from Canada, Japan and the Philippines were able to take part in processions and visit the newly reopened Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the Rosary Basilica.

Pope Benedict XVI evoked the flooding at a special Vatican mass on Sunday, when he named seven new saints, saying: "Let us turn to the Virgin Mary with a thought for Lourdes, the victim of flash floods which inundated the grotto where the Madonna had appeared."

Thierry Castillo, the custodian of the sanctuaries, said: "There have been floods in the past but this one has caused the most damage in the last 30 years."

"We have serious damages, which will run into hundreds of thousands of euros," Castillo said.

Several areas in the town were inundated on Saturday as the river Gave de Pau burst its banks.

Buses ferried guests from all the hotels in the lower town to a conference centre and a sports complex. Two campsites were evacuated and several roads closed .

The body supervising the sanctuaries said a hydro-electricity unit providing power to the shrines had been badly damaged, as well as two pedestrian walkways at the side of the river.

Many visitors voiced disappointment. "I hope I will be able to pray at the grotto before I leave," said Laura Generini, a Florentine. Others were undaunted and said they would return in spring.

Sources

• Agence France Presse
• AFP/France 24
• Image: AFP/Getty/Capital Bay

Former radio personality Tukini Cama who was the spokesman for participants of the week long walk said on Sunday,the rain would not deter them.

"This is part of Holy Week," he said. "The crosswalk is an annual event and rain or no rain it still goes on."

The walk began with a mass at Lami Parish.

Mr Cama said 70 youths and 30 supporters from the Central Eastern region from Lomary to the greater Suva area, Natovi, Rewa and it serves the maritime regions like Lau and Lomaiviti.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: The Fiji Times

Prime Minister Commodore Bainimarama said the unity shown by students in the face of devastation caused by the recent Fiji floods reflected the fundamental message behind his government's policies.

"Through the adversity of the floods, these children are united, different schools and children from different ethnic communities are being relocated to the same schools speaks volume of our Peoples Charter policies and the direction the government is taking the country, a united Fiji for all citizens.

"I believe this is first time children from multi-cultural backgrounds are united as one. This is a first for Fiji and possibly anywhere in the world," Commodore Bainimarama said.

Source

• The Fiji Times - Schools still closed
• The Fiji Times - Students relocated
• Image:Matavuvale.com