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Vanuatu After Cyclone Pam Last Night

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Storm damage to boats caused by Cyclone Pam in Port Villa (UNICEF Pacific)
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Residents search for belongings amidst storm damaged property (UNICEF Pacific)

Australia offers help to Vanuatu. Strong winds still prevents the authorities from confirming the number of deaths and cost of damage.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Canberra was ready to assist, and had medical and search and rescue staff on standby while New Zealand immediately announced NZ$1 million in an initial funds to assist Vanuatu, Fiji, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

Aid agencies have launched appeals and are hoping to start flying in emergency supplies of food, shelter and medicine from Sunday, when the airport in Port Vila is expected to reopen.
“We are extremely concerned for the safety and wellbeing of tens of thousands of people as one of the most intense cyclones to ever hit any Pacific country continues to batter Vanuatu,” said Australian Red Cross’ head of international programmes Peter Walton.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, speaking from Japan, said while the impact was not yet clear “we fear the destruction and damage would be widespread” as he offered his deepest condolences to the people of Vanuatu.
Fiji Weather Service meteorologist Neville Koop said the cyclone was weakening as it slowly moved away from Vanuatu, and would pass between Fiji and New Caledonia before brushing the North Island of New Zealand on Monday.
Koop said Pam was not the strongest cyclone for the South Pacific, with Zoe packing bigger winds when it hit Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands in 2002. But he said the current storm had gusts of 320 kilometres per hour and sustained winds of 250 kilometres per hour.

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Dozens Feared Dead in Vanuatu

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The UN is checking reports 44 are dead in Vanuatu’s outer islands in Penema Province by Cyclone Pam. The winds are still very strong in Vanuatu and Pam heads towards New Zealand. No images of destruction is available, communication is still down.

Another major cyclone, Cyclone Olwyn is looming on Yeppoon in Rockhampton, Queensland. Olwyn has been running down the coast of Australia at the same time as Cyclone Pam.

Pam, a category 5 cyclone made a direct hit on the Vanuatu archipelago’s capital Port Vila, after travelling through Kiribati, Tuvalu and Solomon Islands.

Pam crashed through the 80 islands of the archipelago last night as an unexpected change of course put key populated areas in the path of its destructive 270km h winds.

Watch Nine News

UNICEF team on the ground

LATEST: UNICEF Pacific Communications Specialist Alice Clements spoke to Radio New Zealand where she mentioned unconfirmed reports of deaths.

“We have some very unconfirmed reports of casualties from the outer islands as well but we’re waiting to get official confirmation on those, which is very sad news if it’s true.”
Speaking to Mashable, Alice described the devastation in the capital of Port Vila, where she sheltered from the storm.

“There’s still really strong winds. There’s debris everywhere, there are buildings that are destroyed… this is really a catastrophe,” she said. “People haven’t experienced a storm of this strength here.”
Alice also told Radio New Zealand the storm had gone on far longer than anyone expected.
“I stayed in a concrete hotel that was three storeys high, and even so I’d lost the sliding doors from my room, I had all the wind howling through the room. It was terrifying.”

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More News on Cyclone Pam

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ABC Reports Click on Earth to see Cyclone Pam

Flooding, destructive winds as category five storm bears down on Vanuatu

Updated 20 minutes ago

Speaking from a hotel shelter, program director for CARE Australia in Vanuatu, Inga Mepham, told the ABC’s World program that people have heeded warnings to take shelter.

“It’s a thundery noise coming through and obviously things are starting to fly around. We can feel things hitting us at different times,” she said on Friday.

“I think people would still be in disbelief tonight … certainly we are.”

In Fiji, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the Pacific, Sune Gudnitz, said the storm was the “worst-case scenario”.

“The most vulnerable will certainly be the people who are living or residing closer to the coastline, which in a place like Vanuatu is a lot of people,” he said.

“Very few structures I think will be able to withstand a category five cyclone of the magnitude that we are seeing.

“So we are looking at potentially total destruction of many shelters, residences, especially in the islands south and outside of Port Vila.”

Vanuatu’s northern islands were the first to feel the destructive force of Pam, the strongest storm to hit the nation of 270,000 people in nearly 30 years.

Aid agencies said many people living in flimsy slum accommodation were particularly at risk, as well as those in remote outlying islands.

Authorities in Vanuatu issued red alerts for four provinces, advising thousands of residents to shelter in evacuation centres ahead of the storm.

UNICEF spokeswoman Alice Clements said the capital resembled a “ghost town” as people battened down.

“The winds have definitely increased, the palm trees are blowing around like crazy, you’re starting to get that kind of howling wind coming through,” the official with the UN children’s agency said.

Meteorologist Neville Koop, from Fiji’s Nadraki Weather Service, said Pam’s winds were capable of bringing down even well-built structures.

He said they could be more destructive than Cyclone Uma, which killed at least 30 people when it sank two ferries off Port Vila.

“Pam has winds which are much stronger than Vanuatu experienced (in 1987)”, he said.

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Earlier destructions caused by Cyclone Pam in Kiribati’s capital Tarawa.
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Causeway between Bateo and Kariki in Kiribati was badly damaged by Pam.

More pictures on ABC