CHINA TOWN DECLARED A “NO-GO ZONE”
The Government through the National Disaster Operations Committee 9NDOC) has declared China Town and all other Burnt Down Buildings in Honiara as the result of the civil unrest as a “No Go Zone” due to exposure of very high pollutants of environmental Hazards and Hazardous Materials that are very dangerous to human health.
The National Disaster Operations Committee (N-DOC) of the National Disaster Council (NDC) is deploying N-DOC Sector Assessment teams to conduct multi-sectoral Initial Damaged Assessment (IDA).
The IDA is to be conducted in three phases as follows:
- Multi Sectoral Needs Assessments and Internally Displaced Persons Registration (To be led by NDMO and SI Red Cross).
- Structural Integrity Assessment of Burnt down buildings and Disaster Waste Management (to be conducted by a specialized team of expert led by the Infrastructure Sector Committee)
- Damage and Loss Assessment or Mini PDNA for selected sectors (to be led by the Livelihood Sector Committee)
The Phase 2 IDA is on the Structural Integrity Assessment of burnt down buildings and Disaster Wastes. This is a highly specialized assessment focusing on the structures and material contents of the burnt down buildings, the hazardous material contents and disaster wastes present on each of the buildings and how to safely remove and dispose of the disaster wastes.
The IDA on the structural integrity and disaster wastes is of great importance to the public as the burnt buildings now poses risk of being fallen or collapse whilst the presence of hazardous materials poses very risk to public and human health and may lead to difficulty in breathing, head-ache and so on.
The team conducting the structural integrity and disaster wastes assessment should provide its technical report to the N-DOC by Sunday 5th December 2021. The report should contain the recommendation on how disaster wastes (including hazardous materials) present on each of the buildings are to be safely remove and which landfill site should the wastes be allocated for safe disposal.
It is important that the property owners, people residing on site (securities/care-takers) and the general public NOT TO REMOVE any disaster wastes from the burnt down buildings until informed by the report of the assessment team.
The IDA structural integrity and disaster waste management team comprises of the following technical agencies, Fire Rescue Hazmat Team, Forensic Team, MID Engineers, MECDM and HCC Waste Management Team and NDMO.
The public is warned not to go near, not to enter and not to remove any disaster wastes from the burnt down buildings as its poses environmental and hazardous material risks to public health, and unsafe structural risks to the public.
ENDS///