Our reporter witnesses first hand the devastation on cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu

Transcript

Two weeks after Cyclone Pam disaster authorities in Vanuatu continue to struggle to cope with the scale of the destruction caused by the storm.

Our reporter Koroi Hawkins has now returned from Vanuatu but while there he spent a week traveling through some of the outer islands.

He says the situation is worse than anyone anticipated and could potentially get worse.

Floating off the Island of Erromango in Vanuatu's Tafea Province just South of the capital Port Vila it is sad to have to report that in the communities of the Shepherd Islands and to a lesser extent Erromango many have been left to their own devices in the wake of Cyclone Pam.  This is not to say that the government has done nothing but rather to convey what many people in many communities in Vanuatu have been saying for the past two weeks.  People like Richard Jenery the Principal of the local High School on Emae Island in the Shepherds group one week after Pam.

RICHARD JENERY:  From this point of time on what we have been seeing it is like, now it is already one week and all the food crops taken from our garden has been consumed already and if food don't come it will be another problem as well.

Since then reports are that some food has been delivered to the Shepherds group but exactly when and how much of it is something I would really like to know.  If you ask the Prime Minister Joe Natuman about the relief effort, as I did after he had just landed in a helicopter on the muddy flats of a coconut plantation at Nalena on Epi the Northern most island of the Shepherds group this is what he would tell you.

JOE NATUMAN:  I want to just visit these islands. Very little islands, mostly people living on subsistence farming are very much affected by the cyclone. Just to assure people the government is with them. And will provide a necessary relief, particularly shelter, food water and other necessities and particularly government infrastructure like the schools and health centres that we will rebuild and people can start all over again and rebuild their own lives.

But two weeks on, thousands of miles to the South just off of Port Vila on Erramango island several communities have not received any relief assistance despite Tafea being the first Province to take on Aid supplies.  A woman at Ipota Village on Erromango, one of few to actually receive at least some relief supplies says even that is not enough and they are still facing an uncertain future.

IPOTA VILLAGER: We have nothing to eat.  We just go to the garden and we don't find any food because the birds are hungry too.  They get down the garden and they eat some of the bananas that are broken down, are not ready and we have nothing. We try to survive we look for coconuts that are not good. Maybe the cyclone damage it but we try to take it and eat with our family with our children to survive. And now we are not in good health. We are living in a not good condition.

But not everyone is keen on receiving short term relief aid. One village on Erromango which the locals called Williams Bay and the maps called Dillion's Bay had not been able to speak to anyone for two weeks. They were low on water and running out of food but their Chief Jason Mete said short term shelter and relief supplies would not help his people he said he had his eye on the big picture.

CHIEF JASON METE:  We are appealing to anyone, any sorts of investors who would like to come with an agreement for the land owners of Erromango, we would like to open up our forests. So that people can get timber they will rebuild their house for a long time sustainability and also people could get the money. All the roads for Erromango and all the airstrips here been just constructed by logging companies and that is all. Erromango is rich, we have our resources but we need our resourced to be utilised so that is our aim.

But such long term views are a rarity and most villagers I approached seemed shell shocked, others dejected and some even fearful calling Pam a devil saying a cyclone would not tear root crops from out of the ground and throw them out in the open to rot and spoil. Helen Naupa of Erromango was one such lady for whom the terror of Pam was still fresh on her mind.

HELEN NAUPA:  We have been facing difficult times, especially during cyclone Pam. As I my say it, it, it shouldn't have been called Pam. It is a monster I would say. We had very, very strong winds. And being an older person in the village I found it very difficult in the time when we faced the cyclone.

However life must go on and the Vanuatu government is urging all schools to resume normal classes on Monday. But everywhere I have been whole schools have been destroyed. Helen Naupa says it is too early for the Government to think about restarting the education system in the country.

HELEN NAUPA:  Before the government should come out and say that the children should go back to school, the assessment should have been done earlier. So that they can, before they can give out the instruction that they should go back to school. How are the children going to go and sit on a open space? The damage and the school has been damaged. And they can't be going and sitting there if it is raining. They can't be sitting outside and pretending that everything is okay. It is not okay we need help urgently.

In the last week or so  travelling the islands I have seen a dry and dusty landscape starting to sprout green buds and like nature the people of Vanuatu also starting to pick up the pieces of their lives.  It is likely that many Vanuatuans across the country will never see the brightly coloured aid packages with various acronyms stamped on the outside in bold type. Nor probably will they ever drink the desalinated water being delivered by two Super Yachts and the Australian, New Zealand and French  Defence Forces.  I do not know how this story ends, I leave it incomplete, unfinished and unresolved.  I wish the people of Vanuatu all the best and thank them all for their overwhelming hospitality in the face of an equally overwhelming natural disaster.