Port Vila, Vanuatu--Vanuatu's president pleaded with the world Monday to help the cyclone-ravaged Pacific nation rebuild its "completely destroyed" infrastructure as aid agencies warned conditions were among the most challenging they have faced with fears of disease rife.
An emotional President Baldwin Lonsdale said the need was "immediate" after Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam tore through the country on Friday night packing wind gusts of up to 320 kilometres (200 miles) an hour, leaving massive destruction.
In the capital Port Vila access to water was partially restored and stores began reopening, but entire neighbourhoods remained without power as aid workers streamed in to take the measure of what many have said might be one of the region's worst weather disasters.
"The humanitarian need is immediate, we need it right now," Lonsdale told AFP before flying home from a disaster conference in Japan, adding that the poverty-stricken island chain also desperately required longer-term financial support.
"After all the development we have done for the last couple of years and this big cyclone came and just destroyed... all the infrastructure the government has... built. Completely destroyed.
"We need international funding to (re)build all the infrastructure."
Many world leaders have pledged support. Military planes from Australia, New Zealand and France were arriving loaded with food, shelter, medicine and generators, along with disaster relief teams.
The official death toll in the battered capital Port Vila, where aid workers said up to 90 percent of homes have been damaged, stands at six with more than 30 injured, although there are fears this is likely a fraction of the fatalities caused by the storm.
- 'Quite frightening' -
The nation's Prime Minister Joe Natuman was at home when the tempest hit.
"I tell you it was quite frightening," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"It sounded like a big noise, you know. Throughout the night, big noise, thunder, lightning. When you looked out you couldn't see anything."
While the aid missions continued landing, workers on the ground said there was no way to distribute desperately needed supplies across the archipelago's 80 islands, warning it would take days to reach remote villages flattened by the monster storm.
Oxfam country director in Port Vila Colin Collett van Rooyen said a lack of clean water, temporary toilets, water purification tablets and hygiene kits needed to be addressed rapidly.
"Friday night was the first emergency with the arrival of Cyclone Pam, disease will be the second emergency without clean water, sanitation and hygiene provision," he said.
"There are more than 100,000 people likely homeless, every school destroyed, full evacuation centres, damage to health facilities and the morgue."
Trees, metal roof sheeting and all manner of debris littered Port Vila's roads, while at the beach, several boats were thrown on their side, an AFP reporter said.
AFP
