16 Mar 2005

French team arrives in Pukapuka, northern Cook Islands, to assist in clean-up

2:34 pm on 16 March 2005

A team of French soldiers has arrived on Pukapuka in the northern Cook Islands to assist in the ongoing clean-up from cyclone Percy.

The police commissioner, Pira Wichman, says the team of thirteen was helping out on Rarotonga but will now concentrate their efforts on Pukapuka and nearby Nassau where a state of emergency is still in place.

More than half the population of six hundred plus on Pukapuka remain living with their neighbours for lack of building materials and water is continuing to be shipped in as rainwater tanks are contaminated with seawater and need to be cleaned.

Mr Wichman says the French team will help with the priorities.

"What we have asked them to do is to get there and start cutting up the coconut trees that's been blown down or any of the vegetation that's been broken as a result of the cyclone. So, their immediate assistance will be to cut it up and make it manageable, or make it easier for people to move them off their road, to make the roads accessible again."

Mr Wichman says they'll also be asking whether the U.N. assessment team that is in Rarotonga can extend their stay to travel to the northern islands.