Last Tuesday night, Papua Indonesia time, I was chatting with Chris, he was using FaceTime on his computer, when the power went out... Chris calls me back on his phone and remarks that there is a massive downpour going on. I told him I had heard that they were getting a lot of rain because Gabby was sending me messages from Malaysia. Gabby was telling me that water was knocking on the apartment door of her roommate Ty's house in HiddenValley. After Chris and I chatted for a few minutes longer, just before hanging up, Chris says that they are now having an earthquake. In my dry humor tone of voice I commented, "Or maybe a landslide..." He says.... Maybe... I then suggest he get out of bed and go stand on the balcony to see if he can see anything...
Then I don't hear from him... I truly figured he fell asleep. It's been known to happen.....
A little while later, I get this picture from him.
I guess he went out and did a little recon...
Then I get a message that the bridge at HR is gone, from a massive landslide. I reply, "Good! That bridge needed to be gone a long time ago..." Well, we were talking about two different bridges... He was talking about a heavy equipment/light vehicle bridge at the back of HR and I was talking about a walking bridge in front of HR.
Then I don't hear from him again for a while...
After a couple hours, I finally get a message from him... "Just got home, the front of the school's parking lot is blown out!" Then I ask him if water got in the school... Nothing... Radio silence...
I actually messaged a friend that stuff was going on and what Chris wrote about the parking lot being blown out... My exact comments were, "Maybe and exaggeration.... Maybe not...." I really thought he was exaggerating or he meant "blown out" as in a lot of water was in the parking lot.
Chris' message the next morning, "4.5 inches of rain yesterday. I will get water restored today."
Then again nothing.... Then I start getting pictures...
It's going to be difficult to explain what is what in these pictures, I will try to do my best...
I made a map from a photo I had taken a while ago on the chopper... It's quite zoomed in, so not the best quality... I should also say the flow of the water would be from the bottom of the photo to the top. So the top of the photo is actually down the mountain.
The National and International Schools. From the front door of the schools was a parking lot and then stepped down to a sidewalk, that ran along side, and then along side the sidewalk was a road. On the side of the road closest to the river was a rock wall. Now gone! In the place, one massive void!
Where the eroded part is by the walking bridge (this is not the one I was talking about earlier) was a small parking lot, fit about 8 vehicles. That's gone too! It was connected to the road that fell away also.
A view up stream. The school is to the left of the picture.
This is an arial photo, of the mess in front of the school, I pulled off FB...
A view from the same bridge going down stream. Do you see where the railing is??? There WAS a sidewalk there that when I'm on site, I walk on every. single. day. Two, three, or four times a day! Gone!
Moving to another part of town.... This area is upstream of the school. I'm guessing it's where most of the debris from the landslide deposited itself.
If you look closely, just above where the track hoe is buried/upside down, where the green pipes are bent around, that is where we once had a road, a little bridge across the river. There was also a sidewalk with rails... you can see the cream-ish rails bent around buy the tree in the center... The greenish poles in the picture used to be our driving range and now is/was a bus parking lot.
I'm not even sure... I think where the dump trucks at the orange bus are is the bus parking lot.
A closer view of the no longer sidewalk and the track hoe.
Bus parking
Standing on the sidewalk across from the hospital. You can see the bridge that crossed over to the school and that small parking lot.
Looking back upstream. I'm pretty sure that is our food supply warehouse. Thank heavens that is not gone!!
I believe these next pictures were taken from Chris office window in Tembagapura. Just above the green pipe was the bridge/road. The muddy mess was flow into the back of HR's parking. It did take out a few buildings there! But most importantly, the DHL container is still sitting there!!!
You can see what's left of the river, it's quite full, and the bus parking lot is over where the green poles are to the left of the pic
Just a little more down...
I really do not know what this is... I think it's by the bus parking... but I could be wrong.
So that's the massive destruction that can be caused and was caused by a landslide, and this was only Tembagapura! Hidden Valley, two miles up the road, is also a mess. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of that. I do know many ground floor apartments have major mud and water damage. The most unfortunate event was, one life lost, and another is still not accounted for. Mother nature is a force to be reckoned with.
However, we Tembagapurians are tough and we will fight back. It's not the first time... we have been through three landslides in town in the last 7.5 years... nor will it be the last. One thing that you can guarantee that will come out of a disaster like this is that the camaraderie and the fortitude that we have, will always be shown! We are all a family there and when things are needing to get done, the best in people always come out. We see this with every disaster! We are special people on that mountain. We may have our problems, but we also know that when things get tough, we Tembagapurians are tougher. We will mourn the loss of life. We will clean up. We will rebuild. We will depend on each other. And we will keep being a family! Because what disasters do in Tembagapura is bring us together.
The clean up has already begun. It started immediately!
Water and power have been restored. They are digging out the river and building back up the banks. Chris was out yesterday morning taking pictures for me...
I wasn't there, but my friends and family were. I am so proud of everyone pulling together and doing what needed to be done in a great time of trial! Keep your heads up, because tomorrow we will rebuild and shine, one more time!
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