Calm of bad omen reigns in Thio, 2,500 inhabitants, in New Caledonia. Under the overwhelming humid heat of the cyclonic season, in early March, the streets of the bourg de la Côte Est remain too silent. Customers who intermittently enter Vaïana, the only still open grocery store, are no longer enough to animate the atmosphere. The mine, which made Thio ‘glory, is over. The dust that dirty the lungs and clothes of the village children has dropped. Bench trucks have stopped their noria. The extraction activity was officially dormant by the company Le Nickel (SLN) in October 2024: 350 jobs removed, a thousand affected people. And millions of euros less for the small town.
Thio has just lost half of the population that animated him. The two doctors recently bagged, which led to the closure of the dialysis center. Also left, the physiotherapist and the liberal nurses. The fate of the dispensary remains unanswered. Same uncertainty for colleges-that of Thio-Mission, Francis-Rougé, private Catholic, which mainly welcomes Kanak children, and that of the hill, public: the province will announce in April the closure of one of the two establishments.
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