Tsunami Aid Efforts Pick Up Pace

Health workers added measles vaccinations to emergency aid being given to thousands of tsunami survivors in squalid camps in the Solomon Islands, as a lawmaker expressed concern about an active volcano in the disaster zone.

After a slow start, the international relief effort picked up pace on Monday, a week after the huge 8.1-magnitude offshore quake sent walls of water slamming into dozens of villages in the Pacific Island nation's far west. Up to 39 people were killed and 7,000 left homeless.

The hard-hit town of Gizo was the focus of the effort, with tents, tarps and food being handed out to residents who fled into hills during the disaster and who are too scared to come down.

Medical clinics have been built and pit toilets dug to try to control the threat of diseases such as malaria and dysentery in the makeshift camps that have sprung up.

The U.N. children's fund was due to conduct a measles vaccination program for children aged between 6 months and 4 years as part of the effort, U.N. official Peter Muller said.

"When you have people living really close together in camps, children are really vulnerable," Muller said.

Other elements of the relief operation were hitting stride.

Red Cross boats laden with supplies and medical teams left Gizo on Monday for outlying communities that have received little or no aid so far. A helicopter took a medical team and items such as water purification tablets to other far-flung islands.

Two barges have joined several police boats that are being used around the clock to deliver or load supplies, said U.N. disaster coordinator Antoni Massella.

The barges will dodge floating debris including roofs and other parts of shattered homes clogging waterways between stricken islands to deliver aid packages to communities and pick up people who need medical support, including pregnant women, Massella said.

Axes, machetes and other tools that would help people rebuild their food gardens were due to arrive soon.

Aid agency Save the Children was working with national Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. on radio spots telling people about the importance of washing hands and other sanitation measures that will help prevent the spread of disease.

Diarrhea has broken out in the several camps but is under control, Muller said.

Radio broadcasts were also being considered to reassure people there was no further danger, a task made more difficult by regular aftershocks that have rattled the region since the disaster.

Francis Billy Hilly, a legislator from the area, said about 3,000 people on hard-hit Simbo island had asked to be permanently resettled because they fear the earthquake has stirred up a nearby active volcano.

"After the tsunami the whole island smelled of sulfur. They want to be considered to be resettled. They are really scared," said Billy Hilly, a former prime minister.

Scientists have not reported any significant change in activity in the volcano since the tsunami.

Official counts of the dead, missing and injured still vary. Muller said 33 bodies had been recovered, while two people remained missing. The aid group World Vision set the count at 39.

All agree the number is unlikely to jump significantly. But some villagers have been burying the dead as they find them, and the true number of deaths may never be known.