The influenza pandemic hits Samoa

Colonel Robert Logan in Apia, Samoa, on 29 August 1914, the day he assumed responsibility as military administrator.

The second wave of the influenza pandemic came to Western Samoa on board an island trader, the Talune, which arrived there on 4 November 1918. The acting port officer at Apia was unaware that there was a severe epidemic at the ship's departure point, Auckland. As a result he allowed passengers ashore, ‘including six seriously ill influenza cases’. Within a week influenza had spread throughout the main island of Upolu and to the neighbouring island of Savai'i. Approximately 7500 people – a staggering one fifth of the population – died.

Responsibility for the epidemic has been laid firmly at the feet of New Zealand. In 1918 Western Samoa was still occupied by New Zealand forces that had seized the German colony at the beginning of the First World War. In addition to not placing the Talune under quarantine, the New Zealand administrator, Colonel Robert Logan, did not accept from the Governor of American Samoa an offer of assistance that may have reduced the heavy death toll.

In 2002 the New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, made an official apology to the Samoan people for the actions of the New Zealand authorities.