With reports slowly emerging about the damage wrought in Vanuatu, which suffered the brunt of Cyclone Pam that pummeled the South Pacific over the weekend, leaders from the region made a joint call today from a United Nations conference on disaster resilience for scaled-up storm recovery efforts, as well as durable partnerships that would help their countries strengthen capacities to deal with such extreme weather events.<\/p>\n
Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands were also battered by the Category Five storm, and Aunese Makoi Simati, Tuvalu’s Ambassador to the United Nations told reporters in Sendai, Japan, where he is attending the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction<\/a>, that while the winds had begun to die down, the damage in his country’s northern islands, as well as Vanuatu, is immense.<\/p>\n \u201cThe word ‘vulnerable’ goes hand-in-hand with the words ‘small island,’\u201d he said, expressing sympathy and solidarity with all the affected islands and neighboring atolls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ambassador Simati said that when Pacific Islanders are asked ‘why can’t people go to higher ground?’ ‘why can’t people just move somewhere else?’, the reality is that they simply cannot.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no high ground. Tuvalu is less than three metres above sea level. Our islands are flat\u2026the highest building is only three stories. The islands are small, so ‘moving’ means just going to the other side,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n He noted somberly that in the wake of Cyclone Pam, which had inundated villages and destroyed cemeteries, \u201cwe feel that even the dead are calling for help\u201d as island nations like Vanuatu and Tuvalu struggle to cope with and plan for natural disasters, which are increasing in frequency, intensity and duration.<\/p>\n The aim of the Sendai Conference, which wraps up tomorrow, 18 March, is to update the landmark Hyogo Framework for Action<\/a> (HFA), itself crafted in the wake of the devastation of the Indian Ocean tsunami in January 2005. Climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, as well as the specific vulnerabilities faced by small island developing States, have emerged as key priorities during the discussions in Sendai.<\/p>\n On that point, Ambassador Simati noted the vast distances that must be covered to investigate the damages in remote islands in the wake of the cyclone. New Zealand and Australia are sending planes to survey the area, because it would take boats about two days to reach outlying islands.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue of disaster risk reduction is very close to our hearts \u2013 from [Sendai] to Christchurch and the Pacific Islands, we are all in the most disaster-prone region on earth,\u201d he said, and while international action plans such as the Samoa Pathway<\/a> are in place, when disaster strikes, mobilizing help under sever resource constraints, with vast distances to cover and no telecommunications links, remains a deep challenge.<\/p>\n Faamoetauloa Tumaalii, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of Samoa, echoed that sentiment, stressing that small island governments, especially in the South Pacific, need development partners to support projects to strengthen disaster resilience. Without such support, \u201cit will take a long time to build these capacities.\u201d<\/p>\n