PORT VILA – The National Disaster Office in Vanuatu says the government had enough food supplies for evacuation centres in Port Vila to last the rest of the week, but international food assistance will be needed.

“At the moment it’s really the Vanuatu government who’s looking after the rations at the evacuation centres here in Port Vila. However, in the next like week or so after that they would be needing external support for food needs,” said spokesman Mishael Lulu Garae.

The government estimated about 85 per cent of homes in the city had been either destroyed or sustained significant damage, he said, though it was not yet clear how many people in the town of about 40,000 were homeless.

The southern island of Tanna – about 200 kilometres south of Port Vila – and its 29,000 inhabitants took the full force of the category five storm.

Aid workers who have landed on Tanna Island say almost all of the traditional houses have been destroyed and residents are in desperate need of food and water.

National director of World Vision in Vanuatu Michael Wolfe visited Tanna Island on Monday and said there appeared to be enough food for about five days, and it would take about four months for local crops to grow back.

The Red Cross has also managed to reach the island and said it had been devastated.

The relief effort is now in full swing. On Sunday, a New Zealand military plane transported eight tonnes of supplies and an initial team to assess and assist on the ground.

The New Zealand Defence Force has since flown more relief missions taking supplies, relief workers and medical personnel to help with the recovery.

But aid workers on the ground warn of difficulties in distributing supplies across the country’s many islands and say it will take days to reach remote villages flattened by the huge storm.

Red Cross New Zealand’s Communications Manager Hanna Butler was on the first Hercules flight.

She said the Red Cross had a request from its Vanuatu office to send over more relief in the form of water containers, tarpaulins and first aid kits.

Butler said the situation on the ground was grim.

“I think like everyone we’re still trying to understand the full extent of the damage,” she said, “but we do know that the impact Cyclone Pam’s had on Vanuatu is enormous, and the humanitarian need there is just going to be huge.”

The aid agency Care International said it had just received its first update from Tanna.

“The basic information he gave us was that the damage in Tanna is significantly worse than in Port Vila. There’s an immediate need for water there,” spokesman Tom Perry said.

“There was no news as yet on deaths, but the situation looked very bad,” Perry warned. “Most people in outer islands live completely rural lives.

“They grow what they eat, and this will have wiped out their entire food stocks. People live in very simple accommodation, huts made of timber and palm leaves. There’s no way buildings like that are going to withstand a category five cyclone.

“We’re gravely concerned about it, there’s no question. There is a sense that if we don’t get a response quickly, people are going to be running out of water and food.”

Getting aid to more remote communities would prove very hard, he said: “If you look at the logistics involved in an operation like this, it’s incredibly difficult.

“You’ve got a country of 83 islands spread over hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. Getting around Vanuatu is difficult in a normal situation, let alone when you have no communications, you don’t know the status of the airstrips, boats aren’t really travelling yet.”

New Zealand Prime Minister John said his government would be doing more to help Vanuatu, including longer term redevelopment.

The first priority had been to check on the safety of people there, including New Zealanders and the second to restore basic services, and, eventually, to look towards long term development, he said.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has announced US$3.82 million in initial aid for agencies working in Vanuatu in the wake of Cyclone Pam.

The first supplies and relief workers from Australia arrived in Vanuatu on Saturday after the damaged airport in Port Vila opened to military flights.

Bishop says Australia’s initial package of assistance includes funding for NGOs, including the Red Cross and UN agencies as well as relief supplies for up to 5000 people including water, sanitation and shelter kits.

Australia is also sending a medical team, an urban search and rescue team and a disaster expert.

Speaking at a UN conference in Sendai, Japan, on Monday, the president of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, warned that climate change was contributing to more extreme weather conditions.

“It’s a setback for the government and for the people of Vanuatu,” he said. “After all the development that has taken place, all this development has been wiped out.”

Lonsdale said the cyclone seasons that the nation had experienced were directly linked to climate change.

“We see the level of sea rise . The cyclone seasons, the warm, the rain, all this is affected ,” he said. “This year we have more than in any year. Yes, climate change is contributing to this.

“I am very emotional. As the leader of the nation, my heart hurts for the people of the whole nation.”