By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

RESIDENTS of Lekinioch, a small island in Chuuk, are struggling to recover from devastation caused by a tidal wave that submerged coastal villages and damaged crops last month.
Lekinioch Mayor Enos Walter said 95 percent of the breadfruit and taro patches were destroyed and at least four families were left homeless when seawater rose up to 3 feet on March 5.
“The dislocated families are now staying with other families. Several families are running out of food,” the mayor said.
Walter is now on Guam to seek disaster relief to supplement emergency assistance from sister islands after the Federated States of Micronesia declared a state of emergency.
“Our government has been trying to help but it can only do so much. I’m here to ask for more assistance for my island,” Walter said.
The Ayuda Foundation is assisting Walter in putting together a response initiative to collect donations from local companies and send them out by ship along with a medical team, according to Walden Weilbacher, a board member of the foundation.
“We are accepting food items and other relief goods. But we’re also looking for long-term support,” Weilbacher said.
The Ayuda Foundation wants to send generators to Lekinioch to power up the machines to pump the water out of the village.
Walter said the island experiences high tides every year, “but this year, it came with an unexpected tidal wave.”
Lekinioch, which measures 2.554 miles and has a population of 1,500, depends on breadfruit and taro and the completion of the harvest cycle takes four years.
“We plant taro in different areas in a way that allows us to harvest every year so that we don’t need to wait for four years. We were in the middle of consuming our harvests this year, but the disaster broke the cycle,” Walter said.
Even if the islanders begin planting immediately, there would be nothing to harvest next year because the patches that were growing have now been destroyed by the seawater.
“Right now, we are depending on the rice that has been donated to us. But that is almost gone,” Walter said.