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Vanuatu has been devastated by one of the strongest cyclones ever to hit the South Pacific, with whole villages blown away and thousands of homes flattened. With winds reaching 250kmph, Tropical Cyclone Pam has left a path of destruction throughout the archipelago of Vanuatu and neighbouring countries.

Eight people in Vanuatu have been confirmed dead, although this number is expected to rise once communication has been re-established. Homes and infrastructure have been wiped out with thousands of people taking shelter in evacuation centres. UNICEF estimates that around 60,000 children across the country have been affected.

The category five storm made landfall on Friday night (13 March) and continued into the early hours of Saturday morning. On Efate Island, where the capital Port Vila is located, an estimated 90 per cent of structures are either damaged or destroyed. A state of emergency has been declared for Shefa Province, which includes Port Vila, with other areas to be determined following aerial assessments.

Vanuatu has a population of 277,000 with about 50,000 living in Port Vila. The country is made up of some 80 islands, 65 of which are inhabited. With communication lines still down and transport networks largely inaccessible it is still unknown how many people have been affected by Cyclone Pam.

In Port Vila access to clean water and hygiene is dangerously scarce, including in evacuation centres. The health of thousands of children is of particular concern with kids at high risk of deadly water-borne and vector-borne diseases such as cholera and malaria. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates a 10-fold increase in water and sanitation supplies will be needed to support those affected by Cyclone Pam over the next few months.

ChildFund Australia has launched an emergency appeal to support children and their families in Vanuatu whose lives have been devastated by Cyclone Pam. ChildFund is partnering with locally-based organisation, Live & Learn Vanuatu to provide safe water and sanitation facilities.

Your donation will help to reconstruct water tanks and sanitation facilities at schools in Port Vila and Tafea Province and will provide water purification tablets and hygiene education for children and their families.

Bursts of rain and wind punctuate an otherwise pleasant day in India’s Nagapattinum district. The scents of a dry fish curry wafts through the air. Govindaraj, though, is impatient and waiting for the rain to stop.

“I don’t like this rain, like the way I hate the sea,” he says, visibly irritated. “Since the morning, I am waiting for this rain to stop. I will get the flowers from the market. Every year, I offer these flowers to my parents on their anniversary.” This isn’t a happy anniversary, though. It’s the 10th anniversary of his parents’ death and the South Asia tsunami, which claimed 230,000 lives in South Asia.

Govindaraj lost his parents, his elder brother and 10 other members of his family in the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 7,000 people in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu alone. He dusts off the photographs of his lost relatives.

“We were fortunate enough that our village is located a bit higher than the other villages. The tsunami water did come to our village but did not sweep us along. We survived. Only those who were near the shore at that time were killed or have gone missing,” says Malakodi, Govindaraj’s wife.

13-year-old Anita is Govindaraj’s cousin, who also lost her parents in the tsunami and is now being taken care of by Govindaraj and Malakodi.

When asked what she remembers about that day, Anita says, “I cannot recall anything about what happened on that day and how the tsunami was. The only thing I know is that it killed my parents and deprived me from the fortune of having parents. ”

“I have only photographs of my parents. I miss them the most when people talk about them and about the tsunami,” she says, pointing at their pictures.

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