In a 4:00 p.m. EST, phone interview from Manhattan on Monday, Vanuatu’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Odo Tevi, updated Earth Island Journal as to the latest news regarding the cyclone that ravaged his South Pacific Island nation over the weekend: “We were hit by a Category 5 cyclone, Cyclone Pam… Currently, there are 24 confirmed deaths. Eleven are from Tafea province, eight from Efate [the main island where the capital of Port Vila is located], five from Tanna… Tafea province has about four islands.”
Photo courtesy of UNICEF
The speed of Pam’s winds was unprecedented for the South Seas Island chain located in Melanesia. “The cyclone was carrying winds of 300 kilometers an hour,” the Ambassador told EIJ. “We had a big cyclone in 1987 called Cyclone Uma. This [Pam] is the biggest cyclone ever in the history of Vanuatu [with] faster winds… I haven’t received any news on flooding; there was heavy winds and rains.” (The February 1987 Cyclone Uma was reportedly a Category 4 tropical cyclone that reached speeds of up to 195 kilometers per hour.)
“Currently, [the cyclone] has devastated the capital [Port Vila]… Especially the squatter settlement, because they don’t have permanent structures or buildings, they are mostly affected. The urban poor are affected. That is one of the challenges we’re facing. There are reports some school buildings have been destroyed by the cyclone,” Tevi said. “When the hurricane hit everything was down. But now they’re working on it and in the next few days there will be electricity. Some of the communications are up and running, but not everything as before. Maybe another week.”
The full scale of the damage wreaked by the storm is still unclear given the remoteness of the island chain and its severely damaged communications network. The death toll is expected to rise once communication between the far-flung islands is reestablished.
“The challenge now is that about 75 percent [of the population] is in the rural area, so we can’t really get information. In the next two, three days, we can get information in the rural area. But in the capital, which the hurricane also hit, there’s some information coming out now,” Tevi said. The ambassador is being regularly briefed on the situation by UN officials, who however, have limited contact with those on the ground at Vanuatu.
Asked if climate change was responsible for the most intense storm in Vanuatu’s history, Tevi asserted: “Well, yeah. According to the scientists there will be less frequent cyclones in our region, but we will have the occurrences of bigger cyclones is probably higher.”
According to The Guardian, Vanuatu’s President, Baldwin Lonsdale — who, ironically, was overseas attending a UN Conference on disaster risk reduction in Sendai, Japan when Pam struck — declared: “We see the level of sea rise … The cyclone seasons, the warm, the rain, all this is affected. This year we have more than in any year… Yes, climate change is contributing to this.”
Once again, a people who live close to nature and have contributed the least to global warming are those most severely victimized by its wrath.
Relief Operations
Located east of Australia, Vanuatu — which was a colony jointly ruled by both Britain and France and known as the New Hebrides until it attained independence in 1980 —has a population of 260,000 people, who are mostly Melanesians (Black Pacific Islanders). About 50,000 Ni-Vanuatu (people of Vanuatu) live in the Port Vila area, the most developed part of the archipelago of about 85 islands.
“There’s been no reports yet from the more remote islands because of the communications,” Tevi said. However, “there are some flights to Tafea already — military [rescue] flights, from Australia and New Zealand. An aerial assessment will be carried out by Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, which is a French territory.” Tafea is located south of Port Vila and is where the island of Tanna — known for a World War II era cargo cult religion called John Frum — is located.
“Currently, the UN disaster assessment and coordination team is in Port Vila,” Tevi said.
As are officials from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) as well as emergency response teams from Australia, New Zealand and France and several global nonprofits, including Save the Children and Oxfam Doctors, nurses and other volunteer emergency responders can also contact the Red Cross and UNOCHA, which will be working closely with Vanuatu and coordinating assistance, he said.
“We need assistance. We really need assistance in whatever way,” Tevi said. “If you give $50, $75, $150, it will still help the country… We need blankets, food security could be an issue for now in some islands, tarpaulins — they will need those for right now.” With a population of only about a quarter million people, a little help can go a long way in Tevi’s South Pacific homeland.
Americans may be more familiar with Vanuatu than they realize, as it holds a special place in U.S. pop culture. It’s believed that in his WWII novel Tales of the South Pacific James Michener set the mythical paradise of Bali-ha’i in what was then called the New Hebrides, writing: “Bali-ha’i was an island of the sea, a jewel of the vast ocean… it could be perceived in one loving glance. It was neat. It had majestic cliffs facing the open sea. It had a jagged hill to give it character. It was green like something ever youthful, and it seemed to curve itself like a woman…”
Now, the nightmare of climate change has devastated yet another of our beleaguered planet’s gems.
You can help fund the relief efforts in Vanuatu by making donations to emergency funds set up by these organizations:
Save the Children
Oxfam Australia
AmeriCares
ADRA
Australian Red Cross
CARE International
International Medical Corps
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Samaritan’s Purse
World Vision
Ed Rampell lived in the Pacific Islands for 20-plus years, reporting for Radio Australia, Radio New Zealand, Pacific Islands Monthly, etc. In 1983 he covered the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific conference at Port Vila, Vanuatu.
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