Courage, Discipline, and Faith. These are powerful words, even more so when practiced, and they can truly save a life.
Seventy years ago, this was undeniably true for a group of young men from Morobe Province. They volunteered as drivers and were deployed from Lae with a few Australian administrators from the Territory of New Guinea. Their mission: to assist officials from the Territory of Papua in one of the earliest joint coordinated search and rescue operations during the deadly volcanic eruption of Mt. Lamington in Oro Province in January 1951.
That eruption was, and remains, the deadliest volcanic disaster on record in Papua New Guinea. It covered entire villages with lava flow, fumes, and hot ashes, stretching over a radius of 14 kilometers and claiming over 4,000 local lives in a matter of days.
Thousands of eyewitness stories from local survivors exist, most of which have only been orally transmitted through family generations. Their stories are not yet formally recorded or taught in the public school system. The only written records are the few from the Australian administrators involved in this volcanic disaster. These records show that a few white Australian administrators who took part in the search and rescue operation were recognized by the Australian Federal and state governments for their efforts.
According to records, the area of extreme damage extended over a 12km radius, while people in communities 14km away were killed by the blast or burned to death over several days, resulting in over 4,000 deaths, mostly from the communities surrounding Mt. Lamington, which stands at a height of 1,680 meters (5,510 ft) above sea level.
This is the story of that volcanic disaster and the involvement of a group of young men from around Morobe. They all had one thing in common: they were drivers with the New Guinea administration based in Lae, and at that time, they were involved in moving Australian military and other government cargo in Lae. Following the first eruption at Mt. Lamington, word reached the Australian officials in Lae. All drivers were called to assemble the next day, where Australian officials explained the unfolding natural disaster and the gravity of the situation.
They were told about a planned operation to assist the Papuan Territory administration and the need for drivers to evacuate affected villages. They were also bluntly informed that they might die during the operation and their bodies might not be returned home. Most of the drivers hailed from the Markham, Nawaeb, Finschhafen, and Huon Gulf areas in Morobe and had never seen a volcanic mountain.
One of these drivers was my maternal grandfather, Salasie Ngadup Dunusu, a tall and muscular young man from Labu-Tale, one of the three Labu villages located directly opposite the current Lae seaport. Salasie was the first driver to volunteer, raising his hand and stepping forward for medical examinations by Australian doctors. From his own recollections years later to family members, a few of his Jabem and Kotec-speaking colleagues and close friends from the Markham, Bukawa, Wampar, and Finschhafen areas also followed him, including his close friend from Kaiapit in Markham, mentioned only by his first name, Gebob.
According to written records, “Rescue parties which arrived on the scene were hampered by suffocating pumice dust and sulphurous fumes and hot ashes on the ground. The advance post of relief workers at Popondetta was threatened with destruction by other eruptions during the several days following. Further tremors and explosions occurred during February. Three days later, a violent eruption blew away a large part of the northern side of the mountain, and devastating flows of steam and smoke poured out from the gap for a considerable time afterward.”
Salasie highlighted that his description of the area of destruction was a scene of death, destruction, and chaos. For Salasie, it was also his first time seeing people from the Papua region and territory, especially the people of Oro. He recalled that the atmosphere was full of smoke and hot ash, making the day look like night. Salasie also mentioned that they were literally seeing the line of flowing lava and the flow of wind carrying hot ashes, and he had to maneuver the jeep away, while trying not to lose their way and direction back to camp.
Courage
Salasie’s recollection was that when they arrived, they were given Australian Military Jeeps to drive, with operations conducted in small convoys into villages. Orders were to fill the jeeps with as many people as possible and drive back quickly to care centers. On a couple of instances, Salasie said he and other colleagues defied the Kiaps’ orders to get out of imminent danger posed by changing wind directions and flowing lava, choosing instead to retrieve injured, helpless locals and being the last ones out of a village. He believed that the dead had to be respected, especially when handled, as they were once living human beings. He and others also spared time to move bodies to safer places to be discovered later for identification and proper burial. That was Courage.
Discipline
Salasie also highlighted that they were reminded by Christian Evangelists and also by the Australian officers not to lose focus and step out of line of their duties. He specifically mentioned that he and a couple of others were regularly reminding their colleagues about this, especially when they were also dealing with a large number of fellow Wantoks who were displaced, injured, frightened, and traumatized. He said he warned other drivers to respect both the dead and the living, and not to take advantage of people who were vulnerable due to the disaster. That was Discipline.
Faith
Salasie, a man of strong Christian faith, who was educated by Lutheran evangelists and could read and write ahead of most of his peers at that time, likened the tragic scene of dead bodies and burnt, dying people in villages they went into as “Hell as described in the Bible.” He said he was continually reminding his colleagues, during moments when they could not find the tracks to exit an affected area, that God would help them survive the disaster if they stuck to helping the affected locals to safety. He recalled that on a couple of occasions, his Kaiapit friend, Gebob, broke down crying and blamed him for being the first to volunteer, which influenced the rest of the drivers to follow. At one village, Salasie recalled that hot ashes and black smoke resulted in limited visibility and difficulty in breathing. They had to take cover with some surviving locals in a church building while other houses in the village were burning, and they prayed while waiting for the place to clear up so they could go back to the care center. He said he has testified many times that he survived because of his faith in God and was prayerful before doing the evacuations. That was Faith.
Like all of his other “comrades” from this small band of boys from Morobe who became men in Oro after surviving this dangerous mission, most of their experiences were told to family members. It is about time their stories are on record for future generations to know.
I was privileged as Salasie’s first grandchild and was raised by him and my grandmother, Misali, for the first 15 years of my life. During this time, he was a driver for the government for most of his time back in Lae, and I heard firsthand, near the fireplace and during thousands of family gatherings, about the Mt. Lamington volcano disaster.
My mother, Ayap Sagwana, recalled that Granddad Salasie, prior to that search and rescue operation to Oro, was attached to the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and was driving an Australian military jeep. Ronald Salasie, my uncle, who helped confirm some of the details of my grandfather’s experiences, said granddad maintained his love for driving for the rest of his life and was one of the first registered taxi service operators in Lae before venturing into PMV bus operation. He later retired from government as a driver with the Lae City Council, where he rotated between driving garbage trucks and ambulances for the Lae district administration.
Decades after the Mt. Lamington disaster, Salasie still accorded respect to the dead. It became his ritual in his line of work as a Lae City Council driver, where he took it upon himself to conduct a short private “funeral service,” especially for the group of unclaimed bodies from the Angau General Memorial Hospital, which he, as the driver, was required to dump into a mass grave at the Tent-City cemetery outside Lae.
Most of these young Morobe men who experienced the Mt. Lamington disaster, perhaps all of them, may have passed on. My granddad, Salasie, died in 2012.
They are gone, but 70 years after the Mt. Lamington eruption, at least their stories are not forgotten.
