Thio
January 10th, 2005
Thio is a small village of slightly less than 3000 people located
on the southern part of the east coast of New Caledonia. For a long
time, Thio has been the main Nickel extraction site. As of 2002,
about 40 million tons of Nickel ore has been extracted, containing
a total of 900_000 tons of Nickel. Still as of 2002, the mines in
Thio produce a total of 800_000 tons of nickel ore.
All pictures are available either in tar
or zip formats. Also available is a tar
archive of the original pictures,
before being reworked (these are actually the same).
Note that the tarballs
contain all the pictures I took, not just the ones I present
on this page.
As with Yaté, Thio is separated in two by a river. North of the river
is Thio Village. This neighbourhood hosts the administrative offices,
and most of the residential areas. It is also the part of the village
with the most historical remains.
South of the river is Thio Mission. Located on the sea shore,
this is where the catholic mission, the nickel ore warehouses,
and the wharves are located.
In the past, Thio Mission was the main ore port of New Caledonia.
Seven giant sail boats, with up to 3 or 4 masts used to dock here.
Nowadays, the ore is shipped to either Nouméa, Australia or Japan
using specialized boats that can carry up to 20-25 thousand tons
of ore.
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The ore is loaded on the boat using this conveyor belt.
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The ore flow is 1_000 tons per hour.
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La Plage de Moara (Moara Beach) |
Moara is a beautiful beach of white sand and coconut trees located
7kms south of Thio Mission.
http://www.brobecker.org/
