B2m D’entrecasteaux Makes Cyclone Mission Visit
French Naval vessel calls in here to load relief supplies destined for victims of Tropical Cyclone Gita in Tonga.
The French Naval ship, B2M D’ENTRECASTEAUX berthed at Princes Wharf in Suva yesterday for its first relief mission to Nuku’alofa in Tonga.
The vessel is due to arrive in Tonga tomorrow. French Ambassador to Fiji Sujiro Seam said the port call in Suva was unplanned.
He said they had co-ordinated with the United Nations and the National Emergency Management office of Tonga and agreed that their most useful contribution would be to decide for the vessel to come to Suva to load relief cargo from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for the Tongans.
The relief supplies are destined for Tongans who were affected by Tropical Cyclone Gita.
“The vessel was due to travel to Tonga so we thought we could take advantage of that which was a long planned mission to bring this relief to Tonga,” Mr Seam said. “And that’s why even though this port of call here in Suva was not planned, the commander of the vessel had accepted to reroute to Suva to load the cargo for Tonga.”
Mr Seam said after Cyclone Gita, their embassy sent a defence attaché to Nuku’alofa to make the first assessment. This was to assess the needs so that they knew the potential contribution of the vessel to the effort following the disaster. “So far the reactions are good from the Tongan authorities,” Mr Seam said. “We know that the results were very destructive, and there were a lot of damage.” Mr Seam said their defence attaché was surprised by the way the relief effort and the humanitarian assistance managed to re-establish everything almost back to normal.
“It was a severe event and the damages caused were very well handled by the Tongan authorities and the assistance of the International communities which provided immediate relief,” the ambassador said. Vessel Commander Captaine de corvette Matthieu Ruf said their target was to leave last night.
“We have only few hours to load the cargo because we are due for Nuku’alofa on Friday,” he said.
They also have plans to detach some of their crew members to help assist the Tongan authorities.
“We have 31 people on board and I hope we will be able to detach up to 20 people to help per day and the rest will remain in the vessel to keep a watch,” the vessel commander said.
“People were endangered so we are very happy to help in such case and we are happy that our help was needed. We are going to do our best.”
The B2M D’ENTRECASTEAUX was built in France two years ago. This will be its was its first cyclone mission.