TC Harold devastation

The officers are from the FAO’s Integrated Sustainable Land and Coastal Management (ISLCM) Project, Ministry of climate Change (MOCC) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry, Fisheries and Biosecurity (MALFFB).

The ten-member team will be using the Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal (PRCA).

They will also Conduct Damage and Loss assessment following FAO procedures and using KOBOToolbox, meet with Customary Chiefs; Area secretariat members; NGO’s and communities and Plan activities/interventions that address immediate community livelihoods needs

But there are concerns any much-needed help with the recovery will be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The destruction caused by the cyclone is worse than World Vision imagined. 

“To be honest it is, and that's not meant to be sensationalistic,” country director in Vanuatu Kendra Gates Derousseau says.

She lived through 2015's Cyclone Pam, which killed at least 15 people and left Vanuatu with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage. So she braced for the worst, but even that fell short. 

When TC Harold struck Vanuatu on Monday (6th April), it caused significant damage to communication services on the island. However, since then, Digicel has restored the majority of its network, enabling customers to make and receive calls, text messages, and emails and access the internet in the Northern areas that was badly destroyed by the cyclone.