MELBOURNE, Australia
Aid and relief supplies have begun to arrive in cyclone-hit Vanuatu, Australian media reported on Sunday.
At least 10 people were killed when Tropical Cyclone Pam tore through the low-lying archipelago on Friday and Saturday, flattening homes, smashing boats and washing away roads and bridges, ABC News said.
The death toll was expected to rise as rescuers reached the outer islands.
Oxfam Australia’s executive director Helen Szoke said the destruction was “likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific.”
A state of emergency was declared in Shefa province, which includes capital Port Vila, on Sunday after winds of more than 270 kilometers per hour (167 miles per hour) ravaged the Pacific Ocean country.
Red Cross official Aurelia Balpe said she had spoken to a pilot who reported "widespread destruction" on Tanna island, about 100 km (62 miles) south of Port Vila.
"We have grave fears for the many communities we haven't reached yet," she said, quoted by ABC News.
She added: “Tens of thousands of people are still in the middle of a terrifying ordeal and we need to urgently assess the humanitarian needs and start meeting them as soon as possible.”
An estimated 103,000 people - from a population of 260,000 - have been affected by the storm with thousands more hit in nine countries across the Pacific, according to the Red Cross.
The aid agency said it has not yet made contact with the outer islands because power and phone lines are down.
Witnesses in Port Vila described sea surges of up to eight metres and widespread flooding as the cyclone hit.
In a statement cited in The Australian newspaper, World Vision worker Chloe Morrison said: “Whole villages have been blown away. The homes have been absolutely completely flattened, they’re just piles of timber, and sometimes not even that. They just are totally decimated."
Two Australian military aircraft carrying medical experts, search and rescue teams and emergency supplies landed in Port Vila on Sunday as the UN prepared an international relief team.
A New Zealand Hercules aircraft carrying eight tonnes of supplies also landed at the capital’s partially reopened airport.
Sune Gudnitz, from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told ABC News: "That's really good, getting people on the ground that can start doing the work including clearing up the airports so that we can get traffic in."
Australia's contribution is part of an initial package announced by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, which included 5 million Australian dollars ($3.8 million) for NGOs and UN agencies in Vanuatu.
New Zealand has offered $1.8 million while Britain has pledged up to $2.9 million in assistance.
Vanuatu's President Baldwin Lonsdale, who was in Japan on Sunday for a UN disaster recovery conference, said he feared the storm's impact would be "the very, very, very worst" on isolated outer islands.
He said an assessment was ongoing but most houses in Port Vila had been damaged or destroyed.
Other countries across the South Pacific were also hit by the storm, with 45 percent of Tuvalu’s population displaced and a state of emergency declared. Damage was also reported on Kiribati, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
Cyclone Pam is forecast to pass north of New Zealand overnight on Sunday and Monday, with heavy rain and gales expected.
Formerly known as the New Hebrides, Vanuatu is cluster of islands 2,000 km northeast of Australia.
It is among the world's poorest countries and is highly prone to disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and storms.
Aid officials said the storm was comparable in strength to Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013 and killed more than 6,300.
