Vanuatu's Lik Simelum a true survivor as Cyclone Pam is but one disaster
Volcanic eruptions, landslides, earthquakes and cyclones: 76-year-old Lik Simelum from Vanuatu has survived them all.
Volcanic eruptions, landslides, earthquakes and cyclones: 76-year-old Lik Simelum from Vanuatu has survived them all.
He lives in a country that's ranked by the United Nations University as the world's most at-risk for natural disasters. But his story is remarkable even in an archipelago that has grown familiar with nature's fury. It is also filled with sadness: his father and youngest brother were both killed by a landslide.
Simelum survived yet another disaster this month when Cyclone Pam ripped through the South Pacific archipelago, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 17 people. Simelum's outdoor kitchen was blasted to pieces, but he doesn't seem too worried about that.
Simelum's story begins when he was just 11, living on the central Vanuatu island of Ambryn. In December 1950, violent tremors began on the Benbow volcano, which then turned into a major series of eruptions that lasted for almost a year.
"I was frightened," he said. "Sometimes during the day there would be a lot of ash going up and blocking the sun."
The ash affected everything, he said, killing crops and contaminating the family's well water. So the joint French and British government evacuated much of Ambryn, relocating his family to Epi Island.
He said the family was on Epi only a matter of weeks when a ferocious cyclone struck, just before Christmas 1951. News reports at the time indicate the winds sunk four ships and killed an unknown number of people.
Simelum said the rains were so heavy they triggered landslides. One roared through his home in the middle of the night, killing his father and his brother. His mother survived by clinging to their home's rafters, he said, although she broke her back.
In 1987, Cyclone Uma struck. It lifted the verandah from the home and flung it about 25 metres. Flooding filled the home with mud.
Then in October 2009, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake hit Vanuatu. "It was strong," Simelum said. His low-lying village soon heard it was about to be wiped out by a tsunami triggered by the quake. So he and the others left everything behind, and ran up a nearby hill. But the tsunami never eventuated.
Life was relatively peaceful for a few years until Cyclone Pam hit. Simelum said he's too old to repair his kitchen now, and will leave that work to his children. But he said he expected to see more weather extremes. "Climate change will cause more disasters to Vanuatu," he said.
