Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Communities in Vanuatu continue to rely on government for basic necessities and still lack access to clean water sources almost a month after severe tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin made landfall.

Sisead village community council chairman Paul Fred in Port Vila lives in one of the many homes in which residents do not have water seeping into the house because of a tarpaulin handed out in aid that lines his corrugated tin roof.

“To accept two cyclones within a week, it’s unexplainable. We’ve never experienced two cyclones like this one,” Fred told RNZ Pacific.

“But it’s a good experience for the generations of today, it comes to remind them that we have to prepare.”

His village is one of five in the country requesting financial assistance from the Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau’s government to build houses that are strong enough to withstand the impacts of severe tropical cyclones.

“The government should focus to help ni-Vanuatu people to build cyclone-proof buildings so that when the next cyclone comes we can minimise the need for relief and donations,” he said.

‘It’s up to themselves’
Frederica Atavi is from the same community.

Atavi, who grew up in Australia, said a post-cyclone assessment was still needed to be done in the village.

“It’s nearly a month now and you can see there’s still rubbish on the side of the road,” Atavi said.

“It is slow but that’s probably the island life. It’s slow and steady.”

Like Fred, she wants financial assistance to go towards rebuilding homes for the people in her community.

“The people in Vanuatu don’t have access to financial aid or anything to help them with their structural damage,” she said.

“It’s only the food and the hygiene kits but for structural damage it’s up to them to do it themselves.”

Charlie Willy, also from Sisead, stayed in the village during both the cyclones.

During Kevin, while the older people were moved out of the village for safety, Willy and six others stayed in a concrete bathroom block, so they could nail down roofs in the middle of the storm.

Willy said roofs were still leaking and it was challenging for people to pay for materials to fix homes.

Water source declared unsafe
In the rural village of Pang Pang, about an hour’s drive away from the capital, Serah John, who tends the community’s gardens, said the village had become reliant on food from government aid.

“All the gardens, the fruits and food crops were damaged… bananas and cassava that were uprooted from the strong wind,” John said in bislama.

She said their clean water source had been contaminated by livestock waste after Cyclones Judy and Kelvin and declared not safe for human consumption.

Kalsakau told RNZ Pacific last month that the damage caused by the twin cyclones would cost the country tens of million of dollars.

New Zealand providing help
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta was in Vanuatu for three days last week and visited both villages.

She announced a $NZ1 million grant to support post-cyclone recovery efforts that would be made available to local non-governmental organisations.

Mahuta also meet with her counterpart Jotham Napat to sign the first-ever cooperation agreement between the two countries.

The deal will see the New Zealand government provide almost $NZ38m as part of its commitment to assist Vanuatu – with the money going towards climate change resilience projects, general budget support, and the tourism sector.

Mahuta said the resilience of the ni-Vanuatu people stood out.

“You can not truly appreciate resilience until you come into communities where there has been absolute devastation,” she said.

“Yet the people still pull together, they still smile, they still have the endurance factors that help them get through, something which I think is probably emotionally and mentally draining,” she said while visiting the Pang Pang community.

“It reinforces why the world needs to take action on climate change because those most vulnerable in the Pacific require us all to do our bit.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change warns “there’s going to be a lot of hardship” for people waiting for their crops to grow back as dry rations are distributed to communities.

Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the main food push started in the middle of last week, with only a small amount of supplies being handed out in the immediate aftermath of the severe back-to-back cyclones.

He said there had been logistical issues in getting the food distributed, but dry rations should reach everyone in the two worst affected provinces, Shefa and Tafea, by the end of this week.

“It’s not really ideal but it’s still within the timeframe we’ve set which is three weeks from the cyclone and those three weeks end about now,” Regenvanu said.

“People are frustrated, they’re waiting for food, some are waiting for shelter and supplies so they can rebuild.

“As with every disaster of this magnitude, there’s a lot of frustration with the ability of the government and other partners to respond in a timely manner, but that’s just issues of capacity within the government and our donor partners.”

Regenvanu said gardens, which were the main source of food for people, had been damaged.

“There’s going to be a lot of hardship while we wait for the gardens to regenerate,” he said.

“The food cluster is also giving out lots of seeds and gardening tools to assist people to start planting which should have started happening immediately after the cyclone.”

Rivers, streams polluted
Soneel Ram from Vanuatu Red Cross said the two most urgent needs were access to shelter and clean drinking water.

“Most of the houses have been damaged and some have been completely destroyed by the strong winds,” Ram said.

“Some have been shoved out to sea as a result of floods.

“Most of the villages rely on rivers and streams as the source of their drinking water; because of the cyclones the debris has actually polluted these water sources.”

He said Vanuatu Red Cross handed out jerry cans for people to store water. The organisation has also raised awareness for safe hygiene practices like boiling water before drinking.

Ram said the subsistence farmers he spoke with were down to their last week or two of food supplies.

Minister Regenvanu said money would be given out alongside food so households could purchase whatever they needed.

Non-government organisations were also providing additional relief, he said.

“So we hope that that will mean nobody’s terribly negatively affected by being hungry.”

Assessment difficult
Regenvanu said the assessment of the damage was quite difficult to do because a lot of communication systems were knocked out.

However, last week most of the assessments had returned.

Regenvanu said not all communication had been restored around the country.

He estimated phone connection was down from a baseline of about 60 to 70 percent to around 50 percent around the country.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Ni-Vanuatu residents have emerged battered but still standing after Cyclone Kevin swiped the country with a strong backhand.

“It was quite exhausting. Dealing with two cyclones in three days is pretty draining, you know,” Vanuatu journalist Dan McGarry told RNZ Pacific.

He said the gale-force winds have been rough. He woke early on Saturday morning to try and get a sense of the extent of the damage.

He went outside in the dark to charge his phone, and when the sun came up it was a real eyesore.

“Our own laneway is blocked off. We’ve got tree limbs all the way up and down,” he said.

After clearing the way, he was able to get out and about and have a look around.

Port Vila had been badly knocked about. McGarry came across a mango tree that landed directly on top of a minibus.

“And then the wind lifted the entire tree and dumped it a metre-and-a-half away,” he said.

Fuel was in short supply and a boil water order was in effect, McGarry said.

Many people were at the few hardware stores that were open, trying to buy tools to repair their properties, he said.

On Saturday evening, the Fiji Meteorological Office said the severe tropical storm remained a category five, and was centred in the ocean near Conway Reef.

Tafea province in Vanuatu, which was under a red alert as Kevin tracked south-east, had been given the all clear.

An Australian Air Force reconnaissance flight over Tafea province was reported to have shown some intact settlements and still some greenery.

🌀 Kevin s’approche de Port-Vila pic.twitter.com/yFiynj6X7j

— Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer (@jeangene_vilmer) March 3, 2023

No casualties had been immediately reported but hundreds of people fled to evacuation centres in the capital Port Vila, where Kevin blasted through as a category four storm.

Foreign aid needed
Vanuatu needs support from its international partners.

“There is going to be a significant need — this is not something Vanuatu can do alone, so the assistance of these partners is going to be critical to a speedy and effective response,” McGarry said.

He believed cooperation from donor partners was needed. France has already received a request to send a patrol plane, he said.

“I expect that New Zealand would be putting a P3 in the air before very long. Australia has already committed to sending a rapid assessment team.”

Stephen Meke, tropical cyclone forecaster with the Fiji Meteorological Service, said cyclone response teams and aid workers wanting to help should plan to travel to Vanuatu from Sunday onwards, as the weather system is forecast to lose momentum then.

“Kevin intensified into a category four system,” Meke said. “It was very close to just passing over Tanna. So it’s expected to continue diving southeastwards as a category four, then the weakening from from tomorrow onwards.”

A UNICEF spokesperson said its team was preparing to ship essential emergency supplies from Fiji in addition to emergency supplies already prepositioned in Vanuatu.

“These include tents, tarpaulins, education, and health supplies to support immediate response needs in the aftermath of the two devastating cyclones.”

New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was working with the Vanuatu government and partners to see what help it could offer.

An MFAT spokesperson said New Zealand had first-hand experience of the challenges Vanuatu faced in the coming days and weeks. It had been challenging making contact with people because of damaged communications systems, they said.

Sixty-three New Zealanders are registered on the SafeTravel website as being in Vanuatu.

Parts of Vanuatu have plunged into a six-month-long state of emergency.

Evacuations in Port Vila
The Fiji Meteorological Office said Port Vila experienced the full force of Kevin’s winds. Evacuations took place in the capital.

McGarry said he knew of one family that had to escape their property and shelter at a separate home.

“The entire group spent the entire night standing in the middle of the room because the place is just drenched with water.

“So it’s been an uncomfortable night for many, and possibly quite a dangerous one for some.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

pic.twitter.com/Pj7iIHeubW

— Dan McGarry (@dailypostdan) March 3, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz