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CYCLONE-DEVASTATED VANUATU HAS declared a state of emergency as relief agencies scrambled to get help to the Pacific nation amid reports entire villages were “blown away” when a monster storm swept through.
The official death toll in the capital Port Vila stands at six this morning, although aid workers said this was likely just a fraction of the fatalities nationwide.
Communications were still down across most of the archipelago’s 80 islands, although Air Vanuatu said the airport in Port Vila had reopened with limited facilities and commercial flights were scheduled to resume on Monday.
The government said it was still trying to assess the scale of the disaster unleashed when Super Cyclone Pam, a maximum category five system, vented its fury on Friday night, with winds reaching 320 kilometres an hour.
The UN had unconfirmed reports that the cyclone had killed 44 people in one province alone and Oxfam said the destruction in Port Vila was massive, with 90% of homes damaged.
“This is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific, the scale of humanitarian need will be enormous… entire communities have been blown away,” said Oxfam’s Vanuatu director Colin Collet van Rooyen.
People have completely amazed me. I’ve seen people walk away from totally destroyed houses and help others.
Vanuatu’s President Baldwin Lonsdale described the storm as “a monster that has devastated our country”, his voice breaking as he described Port Vila’s devastation.
“Most of the buildings have been destroyed, many houses have been destroyed, school, health facilities have been destroyed,” he told the BBC from Japan, where he was attending a disaster management conference when the cyclone hit.
Aid workers described destroyed homes, uprooted trees and blocked roads following what UNICEF spokeswoman Alice Clements said was “15-30 minutes of absolute terror” as the cyclone barrelled into the island.
“People have no water, they have no power, this is a really desperate situation right now. People need help,” she told AFP.
Clements said most of the dwellings on Port Vila’s outskirts, largely tin shacks, stood no chance.
Oxfam’s executive director Helen Szoke said it was a “worse than worst case scenario”, while World Vision spokeswoman Chloe Morrison said the situation appeared grim for the outlying islands in the nation of 275,000.
“We’re seeing whole villages and houses blown away,” she said.
The Fiji-based head of delegation for the Red Cross in the Pacific told AFP she spoke with a man who flew a light aircraft Sunday into the southern island of Tanna, home to 34,000 people.
“He said all the corrugated iron structures he saw in the western part of Tanna were destroyed and all concrete buildings were without roofs,” Aurelia Balpe said.
All foliage was destroyed, there was no water and there were unconfirmed reports of two dead.
“Shelter and food are the major issues,” she added. “We are still struggling to understand the number of casualties.”
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The ECB states the it not answerable to national governments. I would like to know to whom exactly it is answerable to?
I think it is time for Ireland to examine our relationship with the EU and the rules of this club that seems to be run by and for the exclusive benefit of the big three.
Jack , good point. Also , Draghi has answered in the Italian Parliament . Why won’t this guy go to our Oireachtas?
Jack did anyone ever doubt that it has always been run for the benefit of the big three. In my job that has been blatantly obvious for over 30 years. Its only in the last 10 that we have had to comply with the help of our own governments. We have been scoring an own goal constantly since.
Fiscal Treaty 2 – is now a legal imperative considering the cover-up of the Trichet letter until it was passed – Would it pass now ? – Would it F…k !
Trichet is only making a showing because he knows that the people have woken up to the bail out con job. he wants to put some spin on why it was so important to financially enslave the people of this country for the foreseeable future.
Will he get out alive ? – Sin an Ceist .
We are mushrooms, fed shiit and kept in the dark.
Correct!
The only things you need to know about the banking inquiry; millions of taxpayers money will be wasted, political theatre will be in full effect, fcuk all transparency and ultimately there will never be any accountability…..boils my Pi$$!
Yeah,7 years later they are going to grill him,they won’t give him time to think of excuses,they are striking when the iron is hot,fair play to ye.
This banking inquire is starting to bore.
I’ve said it before. Permit me the issue and control of a countries monies and I care not who makes the law……
This inquiry may shed some light on this but what i want to know is when are the low lifes responsible are going to be prosecuted for any criminal wrong doings? We are spending millions on an inquiry and at the end of the day nothing is done about it.
Mr Trichet illegally stepped beyond his ECB remit when he threatened to withdraw liquidity funding from Irish banks at the height of the banking crisis in order to make a national government bend to his political will.
Ridiculous and scandalous when u consider the ECB is suppose to deal with money supply (not unsupply) and inflation only…..everything else is for the politicians to sort out, as per the treaties…..but who cares about all that Mr Trichet when u have Angela Merkel and whoever else on the end of the phone eh?
He threw Ireland under the bus (with the help of an incompetent and naive Irish government)…..there’s no way he’d voluntarily show up in Leinster House to clarify anything.
What happened is sadly very simple, in two steps:
1. The banks were deregulated across the western world, and allowed to gamble with savings and deposits for the first time since the great depression in most countries, their gambling built a giant house of cards that eventually came crashing down when it got away from them.
2. Because they used our savings and deposits they were able to team up with the ECB to say “bail us out or we take your money down with us” and they knew in most EU countries, esp Ireland, they had a cabinet that had no real understanding of even basic economics so they are easy to manipulate.
3. Despite this fact, Lenihan and a few others think “well Anglo has no atms or current accounts why don’t we let that fail?” and this clown threatened to refuse to help fund our deficit if he did that, and our cabinet, being again economically ignorant, didn’t realize that this was a total bluff, that if they’d let us go down we’d have taken the entire Euro with us.
The worst news? No real reforms in place since and in 8-10 years it will all happen again.
ELECTION NOW
END BANKSTER BUDDIE NOONANS REIGN
your caps are on…
I thought all this stuff that’s unfolding now was just tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense , how wrong I was !
The conspirators are the government and their elite buddies conspiring against the people for their own greedy ends. Mass boycott the water tax imposed on us to keep their machine oiled nothing to with maintaining pipes.
Hope someone from Ireland’s Banking Inquiry asks Jean-Claud Trichet whether ECB now has essential checks-and-balance procedures in place at ECB to ensure no National Central Bank within eurozone can crash an economy like what happened with Ireland’s.
ECB, aided and abetted by Ireland’s CB, are as guilty as hell in my book, for the fiscal cock up of biblical proportions visited on our economy following 2008 Financial crisis, the effects of which will linger for generations.
Hope Shane Ross is chomping at the bit for this showdown?
So Right” Scottie “Transparency be dammed” inthe the full knowledge,we can milk the cash cows, makes me so angry
Biggest heist in Irish history .. Well planned well orchestrated .. White collar crime and no accountability
We know who’s accountable. The problem is no prison time has been served, no sentences handed down. 7 years and not a single banker or politician serving time.
Let that linger.
I’m sure they’ll be enormously illuminating……snore, snore, snore. If ANYONE thinks that even one of this pack of jackals is remotely interested in speaking the truth at this ridiculous enquiry they are sadly mistaken. I take this opportunity, hower, of saluting Joe Higgins for his valiant efforts, nonetheless.
The ECB is answerable to the Bond Holders, the European Central Bondholders
We should arrest him as soon as he arrives.
It is magic…
have your say