PORT VILA – Vanuatu’s Prime Minister, Joe Natuman, says the government will struggle to feed its people over the coming months as the recovery operation after Cyclone Pam gets underway.

Natuman has made a direct appeal for food aid to be given to the cyclone-ravaged country.

“Right now I want to insist that any development partners who want to assist in the longer term to please provide food.

“What we need for the longer term is food supply, we have to have enough food to feed the people.”

Cyclone Pam – which left 13 people dead – has destroyed food crops across Vanuatu and some estimates suggest the country could run out of food within a week.

Natuman said 165,000 people were thought to have been affected by cyclone, and that there was a lack of clean drinking water, food, and shelter on many islands.

“Cyclone Pam has severely impacted the ability of our population to feed itself,” agriculture minister David Tosul said.

He said that aerial and on-ground assessments confirm that bananas and other fruiting trees have been destroyed outright.

“In short, our agricultural experts estimate that Vanuatu’s people will run out of food in less than one week from today, and our government must start distributions immediately,” he said.

Local crops – such as manioc, tapioca and taro – make up most Vanuatuans’ diets but were obliterated by the cyclone, which packed winds of up to 320 kilometres and brought torrential rain. The shortage of food has also pushed up prices of what remains.

Tom Perry of CARE Australia said a large shipment of tinned food, water, seeds and hygiene supplies would reach hard-hit Tanna island in Vanuatu’s south on Friday.

“This is a huge logistical challenge. Our initial aim is to have enough food for the next three months,” Perry said.

Vanuatu’s government has confirmed it has been having logistical problems distributing the aid and is waiting on navy ships from France, Australia and New Zealand to help distribute the supplies to outer islands.

Health workers in Vanuatu have said diarrhoea, typhus and measles were now causing concern in the storm’s wake.

Medical superintendent of Port Vila’s hospital Richard Leona said he feared measles could spread in the evacuation centres and people were being vaccinated.

“Luckily the public health team has done a good job and they have been moving around vaccinating people from measles,” he said. “I think that over 5000 have been vaccinated.”

Australian rescue teams have removed over 100 kilograms of asbestos from Port Vila’s Central Hospital.

Gary Bailey from Australia’s Urban Search and Rescue team said the asbestos was found mostly in sheeting and roofing.

“We spray PVA glue onto the asbestos to bond the asbestos fibres, we then wrap that asbestos in plastic and dispose of it in a proper manner,” he said.

“So our crews came with a lot of glue and a lot of sprayers to allow us to do that.

“We’ve been going into various parts of the hospital and some primary schools today and rendering as much asbestos as safe as we can.”

Left undisturbed, asbestos poses no health risk but because of the damage sustained by many buildings during the cyclone, the asbestos needed to be removed immediately.

“Asbestos anywhere out in the open is a dangerous thing,” Bailey said.

“When it’s been broken up in the way it has by the storm, the fibres that come off from the asbestos, it’s very dangerous to human beings and they can cause some very serious diseases. So we need to clean it up as best we can.”