'It's all gone': Cyclone Harold cuts a deadly path through Vanuatu
Source: The Guardian
'It's all gone': Cyclone Harold cuts a deadly path through Vanuatu
The northern islands of the Pacific nation were hit by a category-5 cyclone on Monday, flattening buildings, cutting power and stripping trees
by Dan McGarry in Luganville
Thu 9 Apr 2020 23.00 BST
Last modified on Thu 9 Apr 2020 23.59 BST
The once-lush forest cover of the island of Malo has been completely denuded. Nearly every tree lost major limbs. Many were snapped at the trunk. Even cyclone-adapted coconut trees were strewn about like matchsticks. Schools and homes were destroyed.
On Monday, the tiny Pacific island country of Vanuatu was rocked by Cyclone Harold, the second category-5 storm to hit the nation in five years. The cyclone, which formed off Solomon Islands and led to the deaths of 27 people who were swept off a ferry in rough seas, went on to flatten buildings and cause severe flooding in Fiji and Tonga. But it passed through the north of Vanuatu when it was at its strongest.
A small, single-engine plane took off from Vanuatus capital of Port Vila on Wednesday to survey the impact on the northern islands of the country. With communication lines down, news up until this point about the extent of the damage has been sparse, but as the plane flew over Malo, then Aore, and finally Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu, it was clear that the cyclone had cut a deadly path.
Santo, the setting for the book that inspired the Rogers and Hammerstein classic musical South Pacific, was no longer recognisable. Once lush and verdant, it is now barren landscape, sun-burnt and severe.
The majority of Santos 40,000 inhabitants inhabit the southern coastal stretch of the 100km-long island, which was impacted directly by the storm.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/its-all-gone-cyclone-harold-cuts-a-deadly-path-through-vanuatu