The south coastline of Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island has been buffeted by huge rafts of pumice created by an erupting undersea volcano in the Bismarck Sea.
Located around 125 kilometres southeast of Manus, the volcano has emitted a large steam plume since early May, while built-up lava has produced masses of pumice floating to the surface.
The rafts are being pushed by tides and currents into south coastal parts of Manus, complicating boat access and impacting the shoreline.
A former Manus MP and crocodile hunter, Ron Knight, said there was one large raft up to 3 kilometres wide and 5 kilometres long, with a depth of around 5 metres.
“This is a disaster. We were expecting tsunamis, and in fact, they turned around and got us another way,” he said.
“People cannot get their boats out from the beaches. It’s impossible to put a motor down and run it. You can’t pull a boat through it.”
Knight said the pumice rafts had already started to strangle off some of the marine life that Manusians rely on.
“It’s covering all the reefs, all the fish are dying, all the corals are dying, all the sea grass is dying.”
A large sheet of pumice can be seen converging in Loniu passage, a key local waterway, threatening access to the main town on Manus, Lorengau.
“The way it’s going, my fear is we have these huge rafts coming in through the heads here into Lorengau town, and they stuff up the wharves and our landing ramps, which will make it impossible for us to get food and get service by vessels coming in.”
Urgent action required
Knight said while it was hoped a big storm could come through and break up the pumice, along with wave action, action was needed.
“Definitely the government has got to do something about it. We have to stop this. We have to sort it out, and we have to do it now, not later.
“We need barges here with excavators on them, or we have to find a way to remove it from the seashore and get it up onto the beach, and maybe use the backfill for swampy areas in the town area, but it would be a huge application.”
He said Manus communities were resilient, and that “if anyone can find a solution, we will”.
Meanwhile, PNG scientists monitoring the volcano say there’s little way of knowing whether the volcano could develop into a major explosion.
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