Children at grave risk in tsunami-ravaged zone

GIZO, Solomon Islands - As flies buzzed around a basket of bloody gauze, Moana Saito nursed her newborn daughter, delivered yesterday in an open-air maternity ward near the epicenter of the Solomon Islands' earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Swaddled in tie-dyed muslin, the baby rested in Saito's arms as she recovered on a wooden cot under a blue tarpaulin stretched over a metal clothesline.

"It's lucky it's not raining," said the attending nurse, Vaelin Gagahe, who delivered Saito's baby. The nurse has delivered three babies in two days at the makeshift network of tarpaulins and tents that sprung up to replace Gizo's hospital which was partially destroyed by Monday's tsunami.

Health officials warn that without proper sanitation, the number of child deaths in the disaster zone could rise significantly. Unhygienic conditions and a lack of clean water have contributed to isolated cases of diarrhea and dysentery in some refugee camps, and international aid workers were scrambling to dig latrines and set up water purifiers.

Earlier this week, the United Nations warned that up to 30,000 children could be affected by the disaster, including 15,000 younger than 5.

"These children are highly vulnerable to hunger, disease, and the disruption of their normal lives and protective social systems, and require urgent life-saving assistance to survive," the United Nations said in a statement.

Saito's husband, a ship captain, was helping unload relief supplies from a boat that arrived in Gizo early yesterday and had not yet seen his daughter - the couple's first surviving child. They had a boy in 2004, but he died shortly after birth.

Saito, 23, went into labor just before dawn in the hillside camp where she and hundreds of others have sought refuge from their low-lying homes, many of which were badly damaged by the 8.1-magnitude quake and the killer waves that followed.

Saito's home was only partially damaged, but like many others, she has been too afraid to return because of the many aftershocks - including several registering magnitude 6 or higher - that have rattled the region since Monday.

She and her husband have no tent, and have been sleeping in the open air. She is not sure whether they will return home now that their baby has arrived.

According to U.N. figures, an average of 20 children die per 1,000 live births in the Solomons - a rate that exceeds those of many South Pacific nations but is well below those of neighboring Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

There were no official estimates of the number of cases of diarrhea and dysentery. Stefan Knollmeyer of Australian aid group AusAID said he was optimistic that basic sanitation measures - such as pit toilets, water-purification tablets and soap - could contain the problem.

The United Nations has set the death toll from Monday's disaster at 34 people; the Solomons' official toll is 28. However, many villagers have been burying the dead as they find them, and some deaths may never be officially reported.

He said up to 7,000 people had been left homeless - far fewer than originally feared.

Meanwhile, aid flowed into the region after days of delays caused by transport bottlenecks and government bureaucracy. Two large boats docked in Gizo early yesterday carrying supplies and about two dozen troops from Australia and New Zealand, including five medics and six sanitation experts.

Relief has been slow to reach the region's outlying islands, however, and villagers have complained they were running low on food, shelter, and other emergency supplies.