Vanuatu president urges world help to rebuild ‘everything’
SENDAI, Japan (AFP) — The president of cyclone-lashed Vanuatu said Monday his island nation needs the world's help to rebuild ''everything'' after it was smashed by one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.
''The humanitarian need is immediate, we need it right now,'' Baldwin Lonsdale told AFP as he readied to fly home from a disaster conference in northern Japan.
''In the long term we need the financial support, assistance, to start rebuilding our infrastructure -- everything, we have to build.
''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,'' he said. Aid agencies said Monday conditions in cycloneravaged Vanuatu were among the most challenging they have ever faced with fears of disease rife, as the Pacific nation's shocked president said climate change was partly to blame for the devastation.
Relief flights continued arriving in the battered capital Port Vila after Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam tore through on Friday night packing wind gusts of up to 320 kilometers (200 miles) an hour.
But 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 enough clean water, temporary toilets, water purification tablets and hygiene kits needed to be addressed rapidly.
''There are more than 100,000 people likely homeless, every school destroyed, full evacuation centers, damage to health facilities and the morgue.''
''With all the rain and rubbish around, there's going to be malaria and dengue, as well as diarrhea and vomiting with water contamination. People here are reliant on their gardens for food. But all that's gone.''