Epakera Neubery was kicking around a football with some friends on the morning the earthquake struck Mondo village in the Solomon Islands.

The boys were playing on a field next to the church, high above the ocean. When the ball rolled towards the edge of the field, Epakera, 12, followed it.

At that moment, an earthquake rocked his home island of Ranongga, along with many parts of the Solomons Islands.

Red soil slid off the hilltops, taking trees and shrubs with it. The quake jolted the village and broke off the edge of the football field, which crashed into the ocean, more than 20 metres below.

Epakera disappeared from view. Buried alive, he cried for a while.

Then, thinking he was already dead, he lost consciousness.

Meanwhile, his mother, Lovelyn Neubery, had gathered up her three other sons and raced up through the steep village to a large, flat field at the top. When the danger seemed to have passed, she searched for Epakera.

"He was buried, so I had no hope," she says.

After three hours of searching, a villager spotted five toes poking out of a pile of mud at the base of the cliff. Neighbours dragged out the boy, who, miraculously, had only minor scratches and bruises to show for his ordeal.

"I thank God," says his relieved mother. "But now, because of the disaster, I want to move to a safer place."

All over the Solomon Islands, which suffered an earthquake and tsunami on 2 April, people are seeing strange events.

As travellers approach Lengana village on Simbo Island, children on the shore appear to walk on water.

They are clearly no longer on land, but they do not sink under the surface.

The earthquake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, forced land down near Lengana village.

The concrete jetty remains about 50 centimetres below the water at high tide.

At Buri village on neighbouring Ranongga Island, Henrick Joseph, a father of three, says the morning of 2 April began oddly.

"Normally the children go out early to swim but that day they didn't. That was a blessing. Things were strange."

Young men out fishing in a dugout canoe decided to turn back when they noticed something troubling about the ocean currents.

That Monday, the geography of their island changed profoundly. Large stretches of the green western coastline of Ranongga Island were slashed with red, where landslides carved into hillsides.

Further north, the earthquake lifted hundreds of metres of coral reef by up to three metres, killing the delicate organism. Buri village used to be built around a bay containing a rich and colourful coral reef that attracted fish.

Today, after three tsunamis and a violent earthquake, the reef lies drying and dead in the sun, a crunching graveyard of bleached bone-like forms that harbour rotting crabs, fish and seaweed.

Long cracks have appeared in the hillside where Buri's houses perch.

"We're still watching the sea," says teacher Rickson Dick. "We are wondering what will happen next."

Villagers, who are still living high in the bush, an hour's walk from their village, wonder what the strange events mean.

Many people in Buri believe the disasters, which claimed approximatley 30 lives in the Solomon Islands, fulfil a prophesy from the Bible of disasters before the end of the world.

In the midst of the strange portents, people are keen to get on with their lives.

Buri headmaster Redross Piokera says villagers are asking for tarpaulins so they can build temporary shelters nearer their former homes.

As a result of the disaster and recurring tremours, no one in the 700-strong village has been brave enough to return home except to fetch essentials.

Even if their homes are undamaged, they would rather sleep under canvas outside.

However they would rather be near their old homes so they can fetch what they need, tend their vegetable gardens and keep up normal community life.

On Monday, the Solomon Islands Red Cross and a team from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies visited Buri to assess people's needs and deliver water containers, rice, biscuits and noodles.

During an earlier visit, they provided tarpaulins.

In future, the Red Cross and International Federation hope to supply tools and materials to help people rebuild their homes.