Photo: Vanuatu Red Cross

Cyclone Donna was upgraded to a category four on Saturday as it continued to batter Vanuatu's northern islands for a second day.

On Saturday night, the cyclone, which had been tracking west towards open ocean, turned around and continued to linger about 200 kilometres off the northernmost Torba province, where reports of damage were starting to emerge.

In a warning on Saturday night, the Vanuatu Meteorological Service said the cyclone had strengthened over the afternoon, and was now packing sustained winds of 165km/h, gusting as high as 235km/h.

It sat in roughly the same spot for much of Saturday, continuing to buffet Torba with strong winds and lashing the already saturated province with more rain.

"It's been sitting up north for almost two days and our fear is that it might continue to re-energise and intensify further," said Levu Antfalo, a senior meteorologist at the service. "It will probably hang around the north for another 24 hours. It's not good for that area."

Photo: Vanuatu Red Cross

The continued bad weather made it difficult for teams trying to assess the damage in Torba, particularly the worst-hit Torres groups of islands where houses had been toppled and food gardens destroyed.

The head of the National Disaster Management Office, Shadrack Welegtabit, said communication with the province was proving difficult, but some links had been established via VHF Radio and satellite phone.

He said the bad weather was slowing down attempts to gauge the extent of damage in the province of about 10,000 people.

"[Details] are still sketchy, we still need to get more," said Mr Welegtabit.

"In Torres you have five islands with people on them, so it's not really easy to get information. We need to get numbers from the other islands," an effort Mr Welegtabit said could take a couple of days at least.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross, Corinne Ambler, said her agency also had reports of extensive damage in Torres, including to water infrastructure.

"They're telling us that...quite a few of the houses have been damaged and some have been destroyed," she said. "There's about 1,000 in the affected area and I understand that almost 200 people are taking shelter in a cave on one of the islands."

On Sunday, the cyclone was forecast to bend to the south and travel towards New Caledonia.

There, the government announced that a cyclone "pre-warning" would take effect at 11pm, local time, on Saturday, with residents urged to prepare for the cyclone's arrival some time early next week.

In a statement, the civil security department said Donna was expected to bend its trajectory toward the territory, with wind and rain forecast to pick up from Sunday.

The pre-warning was not expected to have any effect on polling for the French presidential election in the territory on Sunday.

On its path towards New Caledonia, the cyclone would maintain its category four strength until Monday morning.

While it was expected to remain over the ocean to the west of Vanuatu's more populated islands, Mr Antfalo said most of the country should be prepared for strong winds and flash flooding.

"Severe weather conditions will prevail well into next week," he said.

Photo: Vanuatu Red Cross

Emergency broadcasts

RNZ International will broadcast news and cyclone warnings to Vanuatu via shortwave and AM radio. Information on how to listen can be found here.</s>[Updated] Arrival of Severe Tropical Cyclone Donna imminent: Torba province now on Red Alert

[Updated 9:30pm 4/5] Severe Tropical Cyclone Donna (Category 3) is currently 170km NE of the Torres Islands, 175km N of Vanua Lava and tracking WNW at 12km/h. It is predicted to make first landfall in northern Vanuatu as a Category 3 system tomorrow morning, May 5.

A Red Alert has been issued for Torba Province by the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department. A Yellow Alert is current for Sanma and Penama provinces and a Blue Alert for Malampa province. Flash flooding and phenomenal seas with waves over 10m are expected in Vanuatu waters as Cyclone Donna approaches. Wind speeds in a Category 3 cyclone range between 165 and 224km/h.

The GFS model forecast suggests that Cyclone Donna may make a sharp turn southward within 24-48hrs towards Vanuatu’s central and southern islands, following Vanuatu’s ‘cyclone alley’ — although this could change.

Cyclone Donna is the second tropical cyclone to form in Vanuatu the space of a month, following Cyclone Cook in early April. Vanuatu’s official cyclone season ended on April 30.

We urge our readers to start preparing well ahead of the cyclone’s arrival, and keep visiting Vanuatu Digest for updates.

Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department has a new website just in time for Cyclone Donna, and VMGD’s cyclone warnings can be found on this page, the cyclone tracking map here, or you can listen to Radio Vanuatu’s frequent updates.

The latest cyclone warning (#10) from VMDG is as follows:</s>Vanuatu faces yet another destructive storm, after the previous devastation brought about by Cyclone Pam. — Reuters picWELLINGTON, May 6 — The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu began assessing the damage today after being pounded by destructive winds from Cyclone Donna which brought down houses and buildings.

The storm was upgraded late in the day to a category four severe tropical cyclone by the Vanuatu Meteorological Service which warned “damaging gale to destructive storm force winds” would continue to hit Torba province.

The eye of the cyclone veered away from Vanuatu before making landfall but Disaster Management Office director Shadrack Welegtabit said winds in excess of 200 kilometres per hour wreaked havoc in outlying islands.

“The cyclone has passed through and we have now started our response, doing an assessment of the damage and what people need,” he told AFP.

“It did not make landfall but the gale force winds affected some islands. There was damage to houses and buildings but we haven’t had any reports of injuries.”

A curfew was imposed in many of the populated islands on Friday with residents taking shelter in caves and evacuation centres until the storm passed.

Corrine Ambler from the Red Cross told Radio New Zealand they had made radio contact with Torres Islands in Torba where houses were destroyed.

“There’s about 1,000 in the affected area and I understand that almost 200 people are taking shelter in a cave in one of the islands,” she said.

Although Donna was tracking westwards towards New Caledonia said, the Meteorological Service said it would continue to impact on Vanuatu for another 24 hours.

“Heavy rainfall and flash flooding is also expected,” it said in an advisory to the small nation of about 260,000 people.

In 2015, when Cyclone Pam slammed into Vanuatu, 11 people were killed and more than 65,000 homes were damaged or destroyed affecting about 70 per cent of the population. — AFP</s>A cyclone that has been threatening the Pacific nation of Vanuatu has intensified to a category four system, according to a local weather expert.

Tropical Cyclone Donna is packing winds of between 170 and 240 kilometres an hour at its centre, but remains well west of the country.

"It's a weak category four system now, which is about the same intensity that Tropical Cyclone Cook gained several weeks ago in April, so at this stage it remains well west of Vanuatu, out over the Coral Sea," said Neville Koop from the Nadraki Weather Service.

"We're a little bit unsure of precisely where it will move next, but it will head generally south-east towards southern Vanuatu and the eastern parts of New Caledonia and it will probably start to weaken early next week as it moves into cooler waters from late Monday."

Cyclone Cook brought gusts of up to 130 kilometres per hour to Vanuatu in early April, felling trees and knocking out power to some residents in the capital Port Vila, but caused no serious damage.

A red alert remains active for the Torba province, which has been buffeted by strong winds and heavy rain for several days.

Sanma province and the Malampa and Penama provinces have also been affected, with warnings for the potential of landslides and coastal flooding still in place.

While the cyclone is now likely to pass south of Vanuatu, Mr Koop said it was still having an impact on the vital tourism industry.

"When you have a small event, even a relatively small event like this, it does disrupt that recovery process, and gardens and farms which are just starting to produce crops again and buildings that have been recently replaced or rebuilt are vulnerable to damage again," he said.

"Clearly this sort of event isn't good for either the locals, who are experiencing quite heavy rain and flooding, or tourism in the region — both the fact that tourists aren't coming there at the moment and probably there'll be some cleaning up to do afterwards."

The official cyclone season in the Pacific ended on April 31.</s>Cyclone Donna, a category-3 tropical storm, has made landfall in Vanuatu, destroying homes, caused power and phone lines to topple and brought flash flooding to low lying areas.

The weather system is currently moving in a north-northwest direction at 14kmh, bringing wind gusts of up to 205kmh.

Torba Province is the worst affected area so far according to Vanuatu's government, as flash flooding a destructive winds have damaged schools, churches and homes, as well as affecting evacuation centres.

The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department say residents of Torba will continue to be affected by "destructive storm force winds" today with gusts up to 130kmh.

"Damaging gale force winds of 75kmh gusting to 105kmh will affect Malampa in the next 12 to 24 hours," The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department said in their latest statement this morning.

"Heavy rainfall and flash flooding is also expected over Torba, Sanma, Penama and Malampa provinces especially over low lying areas and areas close to river banks."

The Vanuatu National Disaster Management Office advises people, that Red Alert is still active for Torba province, Yellow Alert is current for Sanma province and Blue Alert is now current for Malampa province.

NASA says the cyclone is expected to reach peak intensity tomorrow and through to Monday.</s>The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Donna on May 4 at 2330 UTC (7:30 p.m. EDT) as it covered Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean. Powerful thunderstorms circled the center of the storm and a large, thick band of thunderstorms wrapped into the center from the south-southwest.

On May 5, warnings were in effect for Vanuatu and New Caledonia. The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-Hazards Department issued warnings for Torba, Sanma and Malampa. A Red Alert was in effect for the Torba Province and a Yellow Alert was in effect for the Sanma and Malampa provinces.

The New Caledonia Meteorological and Climatological Department issued a Yellow Strong Wind Alert for the northwestern area of the territory.

An infrared image from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on May 5 at 02:17 UTC (May 4 at 10:17 p.m. EDT) showed very cold cloud top temperatures in thunderstorms around Donna's center. Coldest cloud tops were as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 53 degrees Celsius. Cloud top temperatures that cold have been shown to generate heavy rainfall.

On May 5, 2017 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Tropical Cyclone Donna has maximum sustained winds near 90 knots (103 mph/166.7 kph). Donna was a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Donna was centered near 13.9 degrees south latitude and 164.8 degrees east longitude, about 302 nautical miles (347.8 miles/ 559.7 km) northwest of Port Vila, Vanuatu. Donna was moving to the west-southwest at 6 knots (7 mph/11 kph).

Donna is expected to peak in intensity on May 7 and 8 at 115 knots. A trough or elongated area of low pressure moving toward the storm from the west is expected to turn the direction of the storm from the southwest to the southeast. After May 8, increasing vertical wind shear and cooling sea surface temperatures will gradually weaken the cyclone. By May 10, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Tropical Cyclone Donna to begin extra-tropical transition.</s>"The reality of what is happening now is in Vanuatu," President Baldwin Lonsdale told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview on Sunday in the northeastern Japanese city of Sendai, where the U.N. conference is taking place.

"We don't have to depend on the theory. We have to be very practical on what is happening, not only in Vanuatu but around the world."

Vanuatu - a sprawling cluster of 83 islands and 260,000 people, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane - is among the world's poorest countries and is highly vulnerable to natural hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis, storms and rising sea levels.

Shadrack Rubart Welegtabit, the director of Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office who is accompanying the president on his Japan trip, said his country had not been hit by a category 5 storm like Cyclone Pam before. The storm packed winds of more than 300 kph (185 mph) at its height over the weekend.

The president said he feared the impact from the tropical cyclone would be "the very, very, very worst" in isolated outer islands but damage was still being assessed. He hoped the number of casualties would be "minor", he added.

Eight deaths have been confirmed so far, with more than 30 people injured, although those figures are expected to rise. Most homes have been damaged or destroyed in the capital, Port Vila, with people seeking temporary shelter where they can, the president said.

Communications are completely down outside of the capital, and could take weeks to restore, Welegtabit said.

Government ministers in Vanuatu have declared a state of emergency. Aid agencies, including the United Nations, are swinging into action after the president appealed for international help in Sendai on Saturday.

The country's climate change minister, James Bule, said people in Vanuatu were aware of what to do when warned about the cyclone because they are used to dealing with storms, albeit of a lower strength. The government has people deployed across the archipelago to make sure communities prepare, he added.

Vanuatu Red Cross Society President Hannington Alatoa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Sendai that the humanitarian agency's work to educate people to protect themselves from disaster risks over the past 15 years would have helped reduce casualties.

The Red Cross - which is considering launching an international appeal for the disaster - has worked with the Vanuatu government to set up a disaster management structure, and trained local people to secure their houses and stock up on food and water, Alatoa added.

"Easily (deaths) would have been doubled if there was no preparedness, but we have been doing this and it's paying off," he said.

Nonetheless the poorest people living in tin shacks in towns would have lost the roofs of their flimsy homes. "Where the wind is too strong, there is no assurance," Alatoa said.

The Red Cross said on Sunday it had mobilized 200 volunteers who were visiting 26 evacuation centers in Port Vila to help the authorities with registration and aid distribution, and to carry out assessments in all affected areas.

According to the head of the Vanuatu disaster management office, the most urgent aid needs include shelter materials such as tarpaulins, water purification tablets, kitchen utensils, bedding and clothes.

The president and his team in Sendai are trying to get back to Vanuatu as soon as they can, but they said being in Sendai had made it easier for them to request help from other governments, the United Nations and international organizations.

When they left for Japan on March 10, they knew a storm was coming, but at that stage the winds had not intensified to cyclone strength, they said.

"We did not realize how bad it was going to be," the president said.</s>By the time he addressed the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai on Saturday, asking for assistance in a quavering voice, Pam had strengthened into one of the most powerful Pacific storms on record.

"We have not been sleeping," Lonsdale told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in Sendai on Sunday, as he recounted helpless, worried nights watching cable news in a hotel room as the storm steamrolled his country, causing widespread destruction and killing at least eight people.

Ranked as the country most vulnerable to natural disasters globally, Vanuatu's presence at the conference was undoubtedly warranted. But its unfortunate accident of timing meant key officials were overseas just as the storm hit.

With the president, whose role as head of state of the nation of around 260,000 people is mostly ceremonial, were the director of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), Shadrack Rubart Welegtabit, and Climate Change Minister James Bule.

"We had a warning before we left, but the wind was still developing, it had not intensified," Lonsdale said. "When it developed to become a cyclone, we had already left the country. We did not realize how bad it was going to be."

Part of the problem was a late change in direction that put Pam on a collision course for Vanuatu, but meteorologists said the severity of the storm was widely expected.

"Cyclone Pam before it formed was well picked up by weather models ... and most people were aware that this will be a massive cyclone," Stephen Meke, from the forecasting division of the Fiji Meteorological Service, told Reuters.

While weather sites had been warning as early as March 9 that the cyclone could develop into top ranked category 5 storm, few were prepared for the devastation it would bring.

"They knew a category 5 was predicted but nobody here knew what a ­category 5 felt like," CARE International program manager Charlie Damon said from Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila.

With winds of 300 kph (185 mph), flooding rains and a storm surge of up to 8 metres (26 feet), Pam flattened buildings, smashed boats and washed away roads and bridges around the capital.

Communications with most of Vanuatu's 80-odd outlying islands was impossible days after the storm and early reports described widespread destruction.

Colin Collett van Rooyen, the country manager for Oxfam, which coordinates the NGO efforts with the Vanuatu government, said the response had been excellent despite the absence of key personnel from the NDMO.

"It has been good to see that despite that, things have continued as well as could be under the circumstances," he said from Port Vila. "There is an incredible spirit of cooperation, there was before the cyclone and I have seen that continue."

In Sendai, ground zero for Japan's March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, communications with Port Vila were patchy at best, but members of Vanuatu's stranded delegation were making the best of their access to a deep pool of global disaster experts.

"This is God's plan that we are here (in Japan)...it makes it much easier for us... we can very easily talk to the government officials, the UN agencies and international organizations," said Lonsdale. "We trust that our government is taking care of the people."</s>Two thirds of the archipelago's water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed and most wells are contaminated, UNICEF said in a statement.

"There is water but quality is not that good because of the contamination," Ketsamay Rajphangthong, chief of UNICEF Vanuatu field office, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Vanuatu.

"When the water is contaminated there's lots of risks coming after that, especially diarrhea and also other forms of disease."

Tropical Cyclone Pam destroyed homes and infrastructure when it swept across the South Pacific island nation on March 13, leaving 11 dead and affecting the majority of the 252,800 Vanuatu population.

Seventy percent of wells have been contaminated and bacteriological tests showed that water required purification before drinking at all sites tested outside the capital Port Vila, UNICEF said.

The agency has been providing water purification tablets and plastic sheets for rainwater collection as a temporary substitute for the 68 percent of rainwater harvesting structures that have been damaged by the cyclone.

Cyclone damage means that women and children have to walk to shower facilities and toilets further from home, or defecate in the open, lacking privacy and exposing themselves to abuse, said Rajphangthong.

UNICEF needs $1.5 million to close the gap between donations and its appeal target, she said.

"We are still trying to talk to donors and different governments so we can get the additional funds so we can really finish the renovation of (damaged) facilities because this is very urgent," she said.

"We have been supporting the government and working with other U.N. agencies and NGOs to make sure that we assess the damage and try to help the people to get back to their lives as soon as possible," she added.

On Tuesday the United Nations Development Programme launched a cash-for-work debris removal project to provide short-term jobs for up to 100 of the most vulnerable people in cyclone-affected communities.</s>Twenty-four people are confirmed killed in a cyclone that swept the South Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu on Friday and Saturday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

It said that 3,300 people had been displaced. Radio and telephone communication with outer islands had yet to be re-established, but commercial aircraft had resumed flights to Porta Vila despite damage to the airport.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Donna is upgraded to a Category Four, and continues to damage houses and infrastructure in the north of Vanuatu, particularly in Torba Province.