Samoan, October 06: Mass grave sites were yesterday being dug overlooking the Samoan capital of Apia for a national day of mourning and the start of what will become a controversial planning process to relocate the nation’s coastline villages.
Up to 60 of the dead will be buried at the new Tafaigata cemetery, about 20 minutes’ drive inland from Apia, where a memorial will be built to honour those killed in last Wednesday’s Pacific tsunami, The Australian reports.
The Samoan government also confirmed that plans were under way to give hillside property to seaside-living villagers in a bid to encourage them to abandon their traditional lands for safer ground.
Rescuers found more bodies yesterday, taking Samoa’s death toll to 142, including five Australians and one New Zealand-born permanent Australian resident, with another seven still missing.
As coast guard boats searched waters off the southern coast of Upolu Island, and New Zealand police dogs moved through the debris, plans were moving ahead for a mass burial and day of mourning on Friday (Thursday Samoan time) expected to attract thousands of people.
Each of the dead will have an individual plot and a headstone in the mass graves, with a tropical garden planted and memorial naming all of the dead built over the next year.
Valsa Epa, chief executive of the office of Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, said it was still uncertain how many families would take up the offer to bury their dead kin at the memorial.
Under Samoan custom, family members are usually buried in cement-covered plots in the front yard of the home.
But Ms Epa said the government-funded memorial would lift the financial burden on families, give the nation a permanent place to mourn the disaster and resolve uncertainty with villagers planning to move into the hills, who are yet to find new land.
“We don’t know how many people will be buried at the memorial. The families are still deciding. It could be five or 60, but it is likely to be towards the higher end,” Ms Epa told The Australian.
“We want to help these families.
“This size of tragedy is the first of its kind. The people of our nation are really affected and need a place that will be a reminder of what happened.”
Ms Epa said that after the memorial and location of the last of the seven still missing, the cabinet would then start planning the rebuilding and possible relocation of the villages, along the southern coast of Upolu, flattened by the series of seven-metre waves.
Several local chiefs and villagers have told The Australian that they want their entire communities to move into the hills.
Already, scores of families have retreated to the lush hillsides, where many have maintained banana and taro plantations, and started to build new homes.
Ms Epa said that before the tsunami, the government had been encouraging people to move inland from their beachfront fales.
—Agencies