Cyclone disaster a regional test, says NZ Foreign Minister

Transcript

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully says the government in Vanuatu is overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.

And he says Cyclone Pam has caused a substantial humanitarian challenge for the region.

He spoke to Sally Round on Sunday evening following the departure of the first New Zealand defence force plane carrying relief supplies.

MURRAY MCCULLY: I've only had the report from the High Commissioner and it's fair to say  that the government there is pretty much overwhelmed by the scale of the task that they now confront and they can't even begin to scope out the immediate task because of the lack of reporting from the outer islands. So that's obviously an immediate priority. I'm hoping we're going to get some information through later tonight in that respect. The New Zealand air force had an Orion available yesterday to do the reconnaissance in Tuvalu, and I understand one of our partners - either France or Australia - were doing some reconnaissance work today in the outer islands of Vanuatu, but I haven't had those reports through yet.

SALLY ROUND: Okay, so getting back to Vanuatu and the relief that New Zealand sent off today - what was included in that?

MM: Well those were obvious supplies you'd expect - medical kits, tarpaulins, that sort of thing, to deal with the immediate task of giving people shelter, making sure they can drink water and have access to the necessary medicines. There is a significant amount of resource already pre-positioned up there, so that's been immediately allocated. We keep relief supplies in many key places in the Pacific and that's the case with Vanuatu. But we're obviously looking to step up that effort given the scale of the hit that they've taken. Today I've announced an additional one and a half million dollars from the New Zealand government - bringing that total to two and a half. And the additional funding today has been one million dollars for NGOs to partner us, because we need to get help to people on the ground very quickly. And they (NGOs) are best placed to do that. And half a million to assist logistical challenges that the Vanuatu government has in simply dealing with the flow of information, the need for services to be deployed and so on.

SR: And how do you rate this on the scale of disaster? It's Western Pacific-wide, isn't it? So this is a huge challenge for those countries in the Pacific...

MM: Yeah, this is a substantial humanitarian challenge for the region. This is big on an international scale, and it's going to test the region over the coming days and weeks to cope with the simple scale of the task ahead. Ten thousand people homeless in Port Vila is getting pretty close to 25% of the population (of the city). I think we're braced for reports from the outer islands where the populations are significantly smaller, but where the damage may be proportionately greater.

SR: And what can New Zealand do to help those outer islands?

MM: Well, that's something that's being assessed as they do the aerial reconnaissance. Communications are down to the outer islands and the aerial overflight is the only way to make a damage assessment in the short term. We're obviously looking at what can be done to restore some form of communication. We're looking also at what we can do to provide further air force support. We've got two additional flights scheduled for Monday. And it might be that there's the prospect of some landing on airstrips in some of the outer islands, but we just don't know that yet.