Praying for rain in Solomons

While many people in New Plymouth would like a long dry summer David Nunn is praying for rain.

However Mr Nunn is hoping the heavens open over the Solomon Islands where he's recently re-installed a hydro generator to supply power to an 80-bed hospital and school.

Atoifi Adventist Hospital, the only medical facility for about 150,000 villagers on the island of Malaita, and college have had problems withtheir generator for 15 years after it was hit by lightning.

Mr Nunn, who has been helping communities in the South Pacific for more than eight years, pulled it apart and shipped it back to New Plymouth to be rebuilt.

The generator, which will provide enough electricity to power the hospital's life support equipment, water filtration system, security lights and fridges to store blood and food, was re-installed last month.

Mr Nunn, who returned to New Plymouth last week after about three weeks on the island, said now there was not enough water to run the generator.

"The most frustrating thing was it is their dry season," he said.

"We got the project done but we can't make power."

The dry spell had allowed the infrastructure for the project to be installed, which involved lugging steel pipe and other equipment several kilometres up a steep hill and building settling pools.

Mr Nunn and his team had to take all of the tools and equipment to finish the job with them.

The theft of tools and building equipment had also caused delays.

"We got so far with it but then we had issues with gear being stolen," he said. "We had to buy twice as much to get the job done."

Mr Nunn said he will be returning to the island as soon as they have enough water to get the machinery working.

The generator is fed from a river via a pipeline that goes down a 400m drop and has allowed money to be freed up to use in other areas of the hospital.

Once the generator is up and running modern technology will allow Mr Nunn to monitor it working from his lounge in New Plymouth.

He thanked all of the local companies and individuals who had made the project successful.

Hospital spokesman James Asugeni thanked Mr Nunn and his team for their generosity.

Mr Asugeni said sometimes doctors have had to operate without power or lights.

Earlier this year Mr Nunn shipped two containers of goods, including the rebuilt generator, an X-ray machine, ultrasound equipment, beds and medical supplies, to the island.

- © Fairfax NZ News