SAMOA TSUNAMI

WASH CLUSTER RESPONSE

Ministry of Finance, Samoa Water Authority, 

Ministry of Health, Ministry of Natural 

Resources and Environment, Independent Water 

Supplies Association, Samoa 

Red Cross, IFRC, Oxfam, EU/EC, UNICEF, 

WHO, ADRA and World Vision International

Key Cluster Participants

Situation

An urgent need for water

The majority of reticulated water infrastructure in the 
affected areas was damaged

Significant public health risks

Considerable damage to sanitation facilities

Large amounts of debris lying around

Response - Water

Rapid formation of a cluster by international 
actors but three weeks before this was dissolved 
into the Government Water Advisory Committee.  
Subsequent strong Government leadership

Samoa Water Authority very quick to reconnect 
water to coastal villages (but not to hills where 
many people had resettled)

DMO/Red Cross distributed water supplies 
including collapsible tanks/containers and 
chlorine solution

Response – Water, Cont…

Water tanks installed in resettled/newly settled 
areas

Trucking of water supported by UNICEF, Oxfam, 
and the IFRC 

RedR design engineers mobilized to support 
SWA in designing a gravity fed system to deliver 
water to the resettled communities

Behaviour change materials were developed for 
distribution

Lessons learned - Water

1.

Overall strong continuity of cluster support.  
However, key government counterpart 
relationships were not documented – Madhav 
took two days to meet

2.

Poor documentation of other skills which were 
in Samoa.  UNICEF RedR engineers may not 
have been required.

2.

Standards not agreed early/before response.  
Confusion over whether Water Tabs could be 
distributed and amount of water to be delivered

3.

Surge capacity delayed.  Standby 
arrangements not clearly understood/TOR slow 
to be produced

Lessons learned – Water, Cont…

5.

BCC materials slow.  Could have been pre-
designed and approved

6.

Assessment conducted but was too complex 
and subsequent decision making remained a 
challenge

7.

Cluster system not clearly understood by the 
Government of Samoa

8.

Some confusion on Cluster overlap e.g. Who is 
responsible for Water and Sanitation in schools 
and how do these elements of the response get 
coordinated?

Response – Sanitation & Hygeine

Clean up of debris was rapid

DMO distributed hygiene supplies including 
soap

Teams mobilised to provide health messaging 
and dig pit latrines

Behaviour change materials developed for 
distribution

Lessons Learned - Sanitation

As per water for:

Cluster, assessment, counterpart relationships, BCC 
materials, and:

Precise information sharing is crucial. NDMO’s 
tracking was useful, but it was still hard to 
assess what sanitation supplies had been 
distributed where e.g. What is “a box” of soap?  

THANK YOU