Vanuatu slammed by a Cat 5 - wow I feel sorry for those folks!

did this just happen

Here are a couple of links about this Cat 5 that hit Vanuatu:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/16/cyclone-pam-vanuatu-hit-by-death-and-widespread-devastation-rolling-coverage

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31895231

I wish them well. Many of us know what a long road to recovery it is.

Yes Spee1dy it just happened over the weekend. Crazy it turned and made a beeline for them.

thank you, i saw a blurb on the news at work this morning. feel so bad for them

Here's a link for updates on Vanuatu:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/18/vanuatu-prime-minister-says-grow-own-food-survive-cyclone-pam

Animal victims of Cyclone Pam urgently need your help

On Friday, March 13 th at 7pm local time what is being described as a “once in a lifetime” storm – Cyclone Pam - made landfall on the South Pacific Island of Vanuatu leaving devastation in its wake. Vanuatu is among the world's poorest countries and over an estimated 100,000 people have been affected, struggling to find shelter, food and water. Food is predicted to run out for both people and animals by the end of March and that, along with shelter and emergency care are the priorities for helping survivors.

Humanitarian aid agencies are on the ground helping people, but as you know, these events are catastrophic for the animals as well. We are already hearing initial reports through the United Nations of unprecedented damage to the country’s farm animal sector. Cows, hens, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs and cats are all in urgent need of help. Just like people their lives are in danger.

“Animals are important to the people in Vanuatu like everywhere else. They love their pets and more than most places, depend on livestock for transportation, economic and food security. We are focused on helping animals with urgent needs as well as protecting entire communities.” --Steven Clegg, Disaster Response Team Leader, Asia Pacific

Please, can you donate now and help animals caught in this devastating disaster?

$56 could buy life saving feed for 7 animals for one week helping them survive the disaster

$160 could provide 10 injured working animals with a

$320 could fund emergency life saving medical treatment for 10 injured animals

As I write to you, our disaster response team is on its way to Vanuatu to assess the damage and help the animals that have been injured or left without shelter, access to clean water or food. Most local farms would not have been prepared to handle a disaster of this magnitude. Working with local veterinarians and agriculture officials will be important to help the animals with the

By making a gift today, you will be helping animals caught in the path of destruction and will allow our team to act quickly to bring immediate relief to animals in need whenever and wherever a disaster occurs.

Thank you for standing with the animals in times of disaster.

Priscilla Ma U.S. Executive Director World Animal Protection

Link to donate:
https://donate.worldanimalprotection.us.org/DST0315E

Residents Of Vanuatu Face Increasingly Desperate Situation Following Cyclone

Lizabeth Paulat
Mar 21, 2015

Cyclone Pam was a class 5 storm. Stronger than Hurricane Katrina, and with gusts topping 320 kilometers per hour, it blasted through the tiny island nation of Vanuatu one week ago. Touching down after dark, it laid down palm trees like matchsticks, killing dozens and destroying nearly 90 percent of the buildings in the nation’s capital.

Vanuatu, located in the South Pacific, declared a state of emergency and nearby countries swung into action. Within the week Australia began flying in aid and hundreds of agencies have descended on the nation. Yet strangely, despite representatives from various disaster relief programs and faith-based agencies abundant on the small island nation, officials in Vanuatu say residents have been forced to drink saltwater and will likely run out of food this week.

This is because, says Benjamin Shing, the deputy chair of the National Disaster Committee, agencies aren’t following official procedure and merely seeking publicity. “The problem is everyone wants visibility…everyone wants their sign put on it,” Shing told reporters in a press conference last Wednesday.

Disaster relief is more than just shipping food in as quickly as possible. In fact, most agencies have a very strict procedure, with particular channels and strategies for delivering aid supplies. This is because when disasters occur and people are desperate, one family receiving relief supplies while their neighbors do not can put families at risk of violence.

This is a point Shing thinks many relief agencies are overlooking, “New agencies coming in…They’re landing on the ground, they don’t know the people, they don’t know Vanuatu and how it works.” Although Shing was quick to point out that both Unicef and World Vision had been decade-long partners on the island nation and that they had been doing impeccable work, he called out those that were distributing aid in unfair ways, “You can take a desperate situation and turn it into a dangerous situation if you start delivering aid to half the people, you start to create haves and have-nots.”

Shing accused new aid agencies of actually slowing down the work of older, more established agencies on the island. Indeed the country has come up against an increasingly desperate situation.

The BBC reported recently that some on the outer island of the nation have been forced to drink saltwater thanks to a lack of fresh water being available. Many of the outer islands have been “completely cut off” and crops have been destroyed.

A BBC crew who took a boat to one of the outer islands described the scene: “Here are no shops, people grow their own food, and their crops have been destroyed. One man told us his children were going hungry, having to scavenge what they could find. Villagers have been having to drink saltwater for two days. You cannot survive like that for long. The death toll across Vanuatu remains thankfully low. But the suffering is immense.”

Most of the island’s population relies heavily on agriculture to earn their living. Fishing is also a mainstay of the population, but with so many boats smashed into the shore, the industry is also in shambles.

Hanna Butler with the Red Cross in Vanuatu says it’s not all doom and gloom however. Many citizens are committed to getting on with their lives and rebuilding: “It’s remarkable how people here have banded together to clean up the streets. Going down the road you can see that they have been piling debris pulled from the road. They have been very active and earlier in the day you could hear the sound of people using chainsaws to cut up fallen trees.”

Still, officials are saying that it will take nearly $5.3 million dollars to relieve the suffering and rebuild the infrastructure the cyclone destroyed.

You can give to those in need in Vanuatu through the Red Cross, Unicef or World Vision, all three of which are highly vetted organizations who are working in partnership with the government of Vanuatu to help some of the 60,000 citizens who are currently suffering.