Severe flooding hits Fiji
Serious flooding claimed 11 lives and made thousands homeless in Fiji in January 2009. MapAction volunteer Helen Wood was working temporarily in Fiji when the disaster struck. She immediately began to help with collecting field data on the flood extent. This will be used to predict future floods and so to reduce communities' vulnerabilities.
The floods were the worst to hit Fiji for decades. In addition to the direct impact on people who had to flee their homes, there was substantial damage to crops, and to infrastructure including water supplies and schools. Standing water created a potential hazard from waterborne diseases.
Prior to the flooding, Helen was working on a short attachment to SOPAC, the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission. She was requested to take technical leadership of the field data collection effort, to survey and map flood heights at a range of sites across the affected area.
Helen commented: "It was a case of right place, right time. As a MapAction team member I had the skills and experience necessary to quickly design and implement a flood data collection scheme. Just over a year earlier I had been a member of a MapAction team responding to hurricane damage in Jamaica - a lot of the techniques were readily transferrable to Fiji. But there were also new technical challenges and I found it rewarding to work with the SOPAC team who had in-depth regional and local know-how."