People living on a remote island in
the north-west of Vanuatu are having to drink harmful saltwater
following last week's cyclone, the BBC has discovered.
Residents of Moso say they are still waiting for outside help to arrive.
Aid
agencies have begun trying to access the country's small outer islands,
but flooding has stopped their planes from landing in some areas.
One pilot said the lush landscape had been transformed and now looked as if it had been destroyed by a bush fire.
In
addition to drinking water shortages, officials say there is also a
desperate need for food and shelter, with tens of thousands of people
now homeless.
Drinking saltwater is damaging as the more a person drinks, the more
water already present in the body is rerouted to help dilute the excess
of salt.
It can lead to dehydration and death.
The United
Nations has revised the official number of people killed by the cyclone,
bringing it down to 11 from an earlier figure of 24.
The relatively low number of casualties has been attributed to the advance warnings that were issued.
Four
days after the cyclone struck, aid agencies say that outlying areas of
Vanuatu hit by Cyclone Pam suffered "significantly worse" damage than
the island nation's capital, Port Vila.
Prime Minister Joe Natuman told the BBC that the full extent of the damage across the islands was still not clear.
He said that the more heavily populated islands of Tanna and Efate received most of the damage.
"The other islands should be okay," he said, "except maybe one group."
Local people and aid agencies say that the rebuilding effort will be immense. At the scene: BBC's Jon Donnison in Moso
Four days after Cyclone Pam ripped through Vanuatu the full extent of
the damage is still not known. Many of the more than 60 inhabited
islands remain cut off.
We travelled by boat to Moso, the first
people to visit since the cyclone struck. Villagers in the community of
Taseriki told us they had received no help whatsoever since the storm.
Many houses are completely flattened.
There are no shops, people
grow their own food, and their crops have been destroyed. One man told
us his children were going hungry, having to scavenge what they could
find.
Villagers have been having to drink saltwater for two days.
You cannot survive like that for long. The death toll across Vanuatu
remains thankfully low. But the suffering is immense. Getting aid to the islands has proven difficult because of a lack of landing strips or deepwater ports.
Teams
carrying medical supplies, food, water and shelter equipment landed on
the outer islands of Tanna and Erromango, agencies said.
The government is planning to set up a relay system known as "air
bridges", where a large plane goes to a provincial capital, with lighter
aircraft or boats being dispatched to surrounding islands.
Tanna
island has a population of about 30,000 people and is about 200km (124
miles) south of Port Vila. It was directly in the path of the cyclone
and all of its crops and most of its houses have been destroyed.
Tom Perry from Care Australia said relief workers in Tanna reported the hospital was functioning but had no roof.
Similar
damage was reported by Save the Children in Tongoa - a small island
that has about 3,000 people - where 95% of homes are estimated to have
been destroyed.
Communication to many of the other 80 islands in the archipelago is
still down and officials have warned survivors could quickly run out of
food.
The category five storm hit Vanuatu on Saturday, bringing wind gusts of up to 300km/h (185mph).
Many
people have lost their homes or face extensive rebuilding.
Telecommunications, power and water supplies have all been badly
affected.
In Port Vila, power and water have been restored in
some areas, with officials reporting good progress in the clear-up
operation, despite up to 90% of homes being damaged.
"The main roads around the island are expected to be cleared by tomorrow," a Unicef spokeswoman said.
One woman in Port Vila told the BBC that the scale of the destruction was immense - with curled up corrugated iron everywhere.
The president, returning from a conference in Japan, has described the storm as a "monster" linked to climate change, citing changing weather patterns, rising seas and heavier-than-average rain in Vanuatu.
Australia announced on Tuesday that it was sending more personnel,
including a search and rescue team, and three more military planes
carrying aid. How poor is Vanuatu?
About two-thirds of people make a
living from agriculture. Fishing, tourism and offshore financial
services are the other main industries
Australia estimates that about 70% of
the population of 250,000 live on remote islands or in rural areas, with
few services and limited access to clean drinking water, transport or
electricity
Australia is Vanuatu's main donor, giving A$60.7m (£31.45m: $46.5) in 2013/4, about 60% of total aid
Cyclone Pam has "wiped out"
development in Vanuatu, its president said, amid ongoing concern over
residents of the Pacific nation's outlying islands.
Aid has begun arriving in the storm-hit nation, where trees and power lines have been felled and many buildings destroyed.
Aerial images of the capital, Port Vila, show houses completely flattened.
The situation on islands closer to the eye of the storm is not yet known.
At least eight people are confirmed to have died but the death toll is expected to rise as rescuers reach more remote islands.
Speaking in Japan where he had been attending a conference, President Baldwin Lonsdale called the storm "devastating".
"I
term it as a monster, a monster - it's a setback for the government and
for the people of Vanuatu," he said. "After all the development that
has taken place, all this development has been wiped out."
Climate change had contributed to the disaster, he argued.
The category five storm, with winds of up to 300km/h (185mph), struck
populated areas when it reached Vanuatu early on Saturday local time
(+11 GMT).
It is now moving down the east coast of New Zealand, but has weakened significantly.
In
Port Vila, concrete buildings withstood the storm better but reports
suggest as many as three-quarters of the capital's houses have been
damaged or destroyed.
"There are houses that have been totally
gutted, literally with a couple of timber frames still standing," Chloe
Morrison, from the international children's charity World Vision, told
the BBC.
The BBC's Jon Donnison, who has just arrived in Port Vila, says just about every house has received some damage.
Government buildings, bridges and the main hospital have also been hit.
There is major concern about islands to the south, including Tanna, which was in the direct path of the storm.
Paolo
Malatu, coordinator for the National Disaster Management Office, told
the Associated Press news agency that planes and helicopters had been
sent to fly over the islands and assess the situation.
Military planes carrying supplies have started arriving from
Australia and New Zealand, and other countries have pledged to help.
Commercial flights were due to resume on Monday.
Squadron Leader Leigh Foster from the New Zealand Air Force told the BBC they were working to deliver what was needed.
"We've
delivered a forklift from the Australians, we've got medical personnel
going up on the flight right now to repatriate New Zealand citizens and
we've also sent up personnel and equipment from other government
agencies."
In a statement on Sunday, Oxfam Australia said this was "likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific".
"The scale of humanitarian need will be enormous," said Oxfam's Colin Collet van Rooyen in Port Vila.
Pam
had already caused major damage on other Pacific islands, including
Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. Tuvalu declared a state of emergency
after the cyclone caused flash floods there.
Aid is beginning to arrive in
Vanuatu after the Pacific island nation was hit by a cyclone which
President Baldwin Lonsdale described as a "monster".
Air force planes arrived with supplies from Australia and New Zealand, and other countries have pledged to help.
Aerial images of the capital Port Vila show many houses completely flattened.
A
communications blackout means little is known about conditions beyond
the capital but a pilot saw similar devastation in outlying islands.
His
voice breaking, President Lonsdale told the BBC that Cyclone Pam had
destroyed most buildings in Port Vila, including schools and clinics.
A state of emergency has been declared in the tiny state of 267,000 people, spread over 65 islands.
At least eight people are confirmed to have been killed.
However, it is feared the toll will rise sharply as rescuers reach outlying islands in the impoverished country.
The
category five storm, with winds of up to 300km/h (185mph), veered off
its expected course and struck populated areas when it reached Vanuatu
early on Saturday local time (+11 GMT).
It is now moving towards
New Zealand, and though it has weakened, severe weather warnings have
been issued for parts of the country.
"I express my solidarity to
the people of Vanuatu... I pray for the dead, the injured and the
homeless," Pope Francis reportedly said.
'Moments of terror'
Port
Vila's airport was damaged in the cyclone and was closed to commercial
flights until Monday, but the first planes carrying aid supplies were
able to land on Sunday, Paolo Malatu, co-ordinator for the National
Disaster Management Office, told AP news agency.
He said officials were planning to fly out to outlying islands on Monday to assess the damage.
The UK, France, UN and European Union have also promised help.
"The wind was [so] strong that the shutters of the window broke off
and... the glass windows smashed on the floor," allowing the rain to
pour in, a Port Vila resident identified as Jayleen told AP.
The family shop was completely destroyed.
President
Lonsdale was on Sunday said to be trying to return home from a disaster
risk conference he had been attending in Japan when the cyclone hit.
At
the conference, Vanuatu Red Cross President Hannington Alatoa told
reporters that one pilot who had flown over the Vanuatu islands of Tanna
and Erromango had described devastation on a similar scale to that
around Port Vila.
Everything had been "flattened", he quoted the pilot as saying.
In a statement on Sunday, Oxfam Australia said up to 90% of housing in Port Vila had reportedly been seriously damaged.
"This is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific," said Oxfam's Colin Collet van Rooyen in Port Vila.
"The
scale of humanitarian need will be enormous and the proud people of
Vanuatu are going to need a lot of help to rebuild their homes and their
lives."
Immediate priorities, he said, were providing shelter, clean water and sanitation.
There
were "15-30 minutes of absolute terror" as the cyclone tore into the
island, said Alice Clements, a spokesperson for UN children's agency
Unicef.
A UN disaster assessment team is due to arrive in Vanuatu in the coming hours.
"It's devastation out there," said Carina Smith, a British doctor on holiday in Vanuatu at the time the cyclone struck.
"Buildings,
trees, power lines are down. Water isn't running clean from taps any
more so there's a concern about contamination," she told the BBC.
"I've
been up at the hospital [on Sunday and Saturday] and there's severe
damage to the hospital, which is the capital city hospital and a
referral hospital for all the archipelago of islands - it's lost most of
its roof and it's flooded."
President Lonsdale earlier made an impassioned plea for international help.
"I am speaking to you today with a heart that is so heavy," he said.
"I stand to appeal on behalf of the government and the people to give a helping hand in this disaster."
Unconfirmed
reports on Saturday said 44 people had died in Penama province in the
north-east of Vanuatu, according to the UN's Office for the
Co-ordination for Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA).
Pam had already caused major damage on other Pacific islands, including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.
Tuvalu,
a group of nine tiny islands north-east of Vanuatu, also declared a
state of emergency after the cyclone caused flash floods there.
