Vanuatu - Cyclone Pam brings deaths and, destruction

by Sail-World on 14 Mar 2015 Eight people have so far been killed by cyclone Pam, one of the most powerful storms to make landfall, which tore through Vanuatu leaving a trail of destruction.

Senior meteorologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Simon Allen said Cyclone Pam was 'one of the most intense cyclones ever recorded in the southern hemisphere'.

Destructive winds began lashing the outer islands on at 9pm on Friday as the category five storm made its first contact with land. Torrential rainfall is believed to have triggered flash flooding in low lying parts of the country and along the coast.

Overnight Cyclone Pam charted a southwards path of destruction, passing through several of the country's 83 islands, including the capital, Port Vila on the island of Efete. It remained a category five cyclone, and was clearing the southern fringe of the archipelago at midday on Saturday.

By Saturday morning, early reports of Cyclone Pam's trail of devastation began trickling in as residents emerged from shelters to survey the scene and begin the emergency response operation.

Power remains out across the tiny Pacific archipelago and people on many of the outer islands have no access to running water or outside communications, said Chloe Morrison, a World Vision emergency communications officer in the capital of Port Vila.

Morrison said communications have been so problematic that her aid group hasn’t yet been able to account for many of its own 76 staff on the islands and authorities have been unable to assess the extent of the damage.

She said authorities did a good job on Friday moving thousands of people in Port Vila into 23 evacuation centres. She said with the winds and rain easing many people stepped out only to find their homes were missing a roof or had disappeared and so were forced to return to the shelters.



She said teetering trees and downed power lines in Port Vila have made many areas hazardous. She said she’s hearing reports of entire villages being destroyed in more remote areas.

'It’s still really quite dangerous outside. Most people are still hunkering down,' she said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the impact and scope of the disaster caused by Cyclone Pam wasn’t yet clear, but he feared the damage and destruction could be widespread.

'We hope the loss of life will be minimal,' he said during a World Conference on Disaster Risk and Reduction in Japan. The UN said it was preparing to deploy emergency rapid response units.

Morrison said the first priority was to ensure people had adequate food, drinking water and shelter. Beyond that, she said, there would need to be a long and concerted rebuilding effort in the months ahead.

She said the winds peaked between about midnight and 1am.

A westward change of course put populated areas directly in the path of Cyclone Pam’s 270 kilometre (168 mile) -per-hour winds.

New Zealand on Saturday pledged 1 million New Zealand dollars ($734,000) to help with relief efforts. Australia was preparing to send a crisis response team to Vanuatu if needed, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

Located about a quarter of the way from Australia to Hawaii, Vanuatu has a population of 267,000 spread over 65 islands. About 47,000 people live in the capital.

The cyclone has already caused damage to other Pacific islands including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. Authorities in New Zealand are preparing for the storm, which is forecast to pass north of the country on Sunday and Monday.