At least 30 earthquakes have rocked Malawi since early December, the largest measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Nicole Johnston talks to one of the many thousands of people now living in fear and uncertainty, and finds out how Oxfam is helping.
The last time I saw Caroline Malema was in Cape Town, where she had testified at Oxfam’s Pan African Climate Change hearings. She was excited and proud to have been able to speak on behalf of HIV-positive women affected by climate change.
Last week I saw her again, standing outside the crumbling remains of her home in Karonga, strain etched on her face as she showed me the grass and plastic shelter in her backyard, where her family now sleeps.
Since the string of earthquakes that struck northern Malawi in early December, people do not dare sleep in their houses, afraid of again waking up in the middle of the night to find the floors buckling and bricks raining down from the walls.
A swarm of earthquakes
At least 30 earthquakes have rocked the country in the past month, the largest measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Scientists are calling the series of quakes in Karonga – situated along the Great Rift Valley and near the border with Tanzania – an “earthquake swarm” and doing geological assessments to ascertain if more are on the way.
“The house was shaking like it was being carried on a big lorry,” says Caroline, describing the first quake. “I had such a fright I rushed out of the house and forgot my grandchild inside.”
In the second quake on 20 December, Caroline’s child was hit on the head by a brick. The family fled outside and spent the night in the pouring rain. The next day the child, who suffers from asthma had to go into hospital. The family is living in fear, not knowing when or if another big quake will strike, not sure if they should try to patch up the gaping holes and cracks in their walls and roof, and not really having the money to do so.
“We don’t think this is finished – there are still lots of small shakes. We don’t know why this happens. Is it climate change? Is it God doing this?”
Fear and uncertainty
This uncertainty is impacting on women’s ability to earn a living, as they are loathed to leave their children alone while they go to trade for fish at the markets near Lake Malawi, in case another big earthquake strikes.
“The rains didn’t come in November as they were supposed to, but they came very heavily after the earthquakes. Our maize harvest will be very poor, and then what will we eat?” asks Malema.
The Malawian government and NGOs have set up a camp for displaced people, and currently caters for about 7000 people. But many refuse to move into the camp and desert their homes. “People don’t want to leave their land,’ explains Colins Kamuloni the camp manager from the Ministry of Health. “They will tell you ‘our parents died here and their graves are here, so where should we go?’ If they don’t work in the fields now, there will be hunger next year.”
What Oxfam is doing
Oxfam has accessed money from its Catastrophe Fund to install water tanks, water points and toilets. We are also working with partner organisations and the Malawian Ministry of Health on education around safe hygiene practices, as well as to distribute soap, water containers and mosquito nets.
Kossam Munthali of Focus – a community based Oxfam partner organisation – is clear that living in the camp is not a long-term solution: “We don’t want people to become dependent on aid. We need accountability and transparency on how decisions will be made if people are to be relocated.”
The challenges faced by the affected community – comprising 270 000 people – are compounded for the 3000 HIV-positive members of the Karonga Women’s Forum.
“As HIV-positive women we need to eat five times a day, so that our medicine [anti-retrovirals] can work properly. But now we do not have enough food and we sleep outside without mosquito nets, which is very dangerous for positive women because malaria can kill us,” says Malema. “The shelters we have built are very small [about 1x 3m] and some have two families in them at night, so we are also afraid of cholera. The earthquake knocked down the toilets and the heavy rain has washed them away.”
If a geological survey finds that the area is likely to suffer more quakes in future, the community may be relocated. Malema worries that she will not be able to afford to build another house, and will lose the farmland that provides the subsistence crops that feed her family. “Climate change has hit us very hard, and we were already struggling to survive. Now we don’t know what the future holds for our children.”
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