International aid agencies began emergency flights on Tuesday to some of the remote outer islands of Vanuatu, which they fear have been devastated by a monster cyclone that tore through the South Pacific island nation.
Disaster management officials and relief workers are still struggling to establish contact with many islands that bore the brunt of Cyclone Pam’s winds of more than 300 km/h on Friday and Saturday.
The United Nations said the official death toll from the cyclone was 11, revising down its earlier figure of 24, but many officials anticipate that number will rise once they are able to land on the outer islands of the scattered archipelago to inspect the damage there.
“We have no contact of any sort with the outer islands. The priority is to get communications up and running. It’s very, very concerning that we haven’t heard anything from the outlying islands,” Joe Lowry, a spokesman for International Organisation for Migration (ILM), said.
“If the devastation is as high as we think it is on those islands, there is a chance that the death toll will go up very significantly.”
Some 3,300 people were left homeless after it destroyed homes, flattened buildings and washed away roads.
Aid agencies and rescue teams from Australia and New Zealand have flown over several islands, but have so far been unable to land on most because of flooding. Helicopters, which will be able to land on higher ground, are being used and will give rescue workers a clearer picture of the overall impact.
A witness on Tanna, an island of 29,000 people about 200 km south of the capital, said the scene around the airport was of “total devastation”, with every shred of green stripped from the trees.
The Australian Red Cross said it had reports that most homes on Tanna, which took the full force of the category 5 storm, were destroyed.
“Trees have been uprooted; there is no foliage and no corrugated iron structures standing on the western side of Tanna,” said Red Cross aid worker Peter Lawther, who had been to the island.
“Schools and concrete homes across Tanna are destroyed. Shelter, along with water and food remain a top priority, and we are working on getting help here as quickly as possible.”
Reports from aid groups also said the main town on the island of Erromango, north of Tanna, had suffered similar destruction.
In Port Vila, the clean-up was beginning, but there were worries about food supplies after the main local market was destroyed.
The majority of locals rely on foods sold at the downtown market such as taro, island cabbage, bananas, kumara and yams for their staple diet.
Shops selling tinned food were open and stocked in the capital, but most locals do not have the money to buy those foods and many were reported scavenging for bananas or fruit.
“We have bread for the first time today because the bakery has opened,” said shop owner Colette Calvo.
“We have water but the situation is very bad because people don’t have local food,” Ms Calvo added. “All they can eat is food like bananas that they pick up off the ground and they can get sick.”
Central Port Vila was relatively unscathed, with most of the concrete buildings still standing, but as much as three-quarters of the capital’s houses were reported destroyed or severely damaged after seas surged as high as 8 metres.
Long queues formed at petrol stations, with many people lining up for hours.
A 6pm to 6am curfew had been imposed in the capital to prevent looting.
Formerly known as the New Hebrides, Vanuatu is a sprawling cluster of more than 80 islands and 260,000 people, 2,000 km northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane.
Perched on the geologically active “Ring of Fire”, one of the world’s poorest nations suffers from frequent earthquakes and tsunamis and has several active volcanoes, in addition to threats from storms and rising sea levels.
Port Vila, the capital, which took the full force of the category 5 storm, was recently named in the Natural Hazards Risk Atlas as the city most exposed to natural disasters in the world. The city faces a combination of risks including earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding and tropical cyclones.
Aid from New Zealand, Australia, France and the United States, among others, continued to be flown in, and most foreign tourists were leaving the islands where possible.
Tourism, which accounts for about 40 per cent of Vanuatu’s economy, has been badly affected, with Port Vila closed to cruise liners indefinitely.
“We are not sure when Port Vila will be open again, given the extent of the destruction there,” said David Gray, a spokesman for the Australian arm of cruise company Carnival Corp , which owns the P&O brand.
“We are keen to go back as soon as possible, given how important this industry is to the Vanuatu economy, but we won’t go back until the authorities give us the all clear.”
Aid officials said the storm was comparable in strength to Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013 and killed more than 6,000 people.
Reuters