When a phone call becomes a lifeline
A simple act of kindness eased the fears of a son who thought his parents were lost beneath volcanic ash and mud.
John Moli didn’t know if his family was alive.
He’d heard that the volcano on his home island of Ambae in Vanuatu had erupted for the second time that year, causing hundreds of tons of ash and mud to pummel down the mountainside and destroying everything in its path. His father Enoch, his mother Desline, his brothers and sisters, and his nieces and nephews lived on the island.
He was fruit picking in New South Wales, Australia, at the time of the eruption. Occasionally, he and his father would communicate via Facebook, but there had been no contact from him since the volcano erupted. John feared the worst.
Then the phone rang, and the unmistakable sound of Enoch’s voice came barrelling down the line.
"Boy, we are sitting here in a temporary space, we have no food,” said Enoch. With that, John started to cry.
Days earlier, Enoch and the rest of his family had been woken in the middle of the night to the sounds of the Manaro volcano erupting above them.
“The noise when it blew, it shook the whole house, the ground moved. We ran out, we saw the volcano blowing, the mountain was very red. It erupted and broke apart. I was so frightened for my family and my life,” says Enoch.
His house, garden and crops were destroyed by the ash. Some of his animals died during the ash fall and others ran off into the bush. He lost everything.
Enoch and his family spent the next two days packing up what they could from their home. Then with the help of Vanuatu Red Cross, they left Ambae - the only home they knew - and evacuated to the neighbouring island of Santo.
Who came here firstly was Red Cross. We were empty-handed so they gave blankets, a spade, knives, saucepans, spoons, hotplates, cooking pots, hammer, nails, wood, tarpaulins. Red Cross helped a lot, gave us the best. We were happy.
Thanks to generous donors like you, Red Cross also helps to reconnect families who have been separated in disasters and conflicts around the world. Whether it is after a natural disaster in a country like Vanuatu or during conflict in a country like Syria, we help families try to re-establish contact.
In Vanuatu, along with the essentials, Red Cross distributed phone cards so families could call their loved ones. Enoch used one of these phone cards to call John.
“He cried on the phone because he didn’t know if we were alive or not until I told him about Red Cross. Then, my son was very happy that Red Cross came to us and we made it out safely. He was very happy to hear what Red Cross had done for us,” says Enoch.
He also phoned his daughter-in-law, John’s wife, who was living on Santo to arrange food for the family. “I said, ‘We have just come here, the government has given us some food but we need local food.’ So she got a truck and put some bananas, taro and cabbage on it for us,” says Enoch.
He was also able to ask his son Vera, who had gone back to Ambae on his own, to check on their home. “He told me, ‘Our house is broken, the car is broken, all the local houses are broken and the Red Cross are going around, they’ve started to clear up the bush.’”
The family plan to return to Ambae when it is safe, but Enoch and Desline worry the volcano may erupt again. Even with that danger, the pull of home remains strong.
“I miss Ambae for many things: going to the bushes, the mountains, going camping, searching for fish, my farm. We miss it a lot,” says Enoch.
We are able to support the work of our Red Cross colleagues helping vulnerable disaster-affected communities across the Asia-Pacific, thanks to generous donors like you.