News Digest

Aid pours in, but massive damage hampering Vanuatu cyclone aid effort

Cyclone-devastated Vanuatu declared a state of emergency Sunday as relief agencies desperately scrambled to get help to the impoverished Pacific nation amid reports entire villages were “blown away” when a monster storm swept through. The official death toll stood at six on Sunday, although the UN had unconfirmed reports of 44 people killed in just one province after Super Cyclone Pam, a maximum category five storm, tore through. Oxfam said up to 90 percent of houses in Port Vila were damaged as winds of up to 320 kilometres (200 miles) an hour lashed the country when the storm hit Friday night. It said the scale of the disaster would not be known until reports filter in from outlying islands.

This is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific, the scale of humanitarian need will be enormous… entire communities have been blown away.

Oxfam’s Vanuatu director Colin Collet van Rooyen

Communications remain down across most of the country, making it difficult to assess the scale of the damage, particularly on outlying islands that were directly in the storm’s path. Oxfam’s executive director Helen Szoke said it was a “worse than worst case scenario”. Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale led appeals for international assistance, telling delegates at a UN conference on disaster risk reduction in Japan Saturday that he spoke with a “heart that is so heavy”. NGOs have also launched appeals and are hoping to start flying in emergency supplies of food, shelter and medicine from Sunday, when the airport in the capital Port Vila is expected to reopen. Australia said it was sending Aus$5 million in aid and deploying disaster teams, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop saying help was also being sent to neighbouring Tuvalu. Other donations for Vanuatu included $2.9 million from Britain, $733,750 by New Zealand and $1.05 million from the European Union. President Francois Hollande also said France would respond to requests for assistance.

We’re seeing whole villages and houses blown away.

World Vision spokeswoman Chloe Morrison