REBUILDING Vanuatu will take most of the rest of 2015 and the cycloneravaged country needs thousands more shelter kits.

That is one of the major assessments of disaster management experts among the 34 aid organisations that are or were in Vanuatu and these experts described it is as a mammoth task with substantially more aid supplies urgently needed.

Tents and tarpaulins remain in short supply with a revised figure of 188,000 people without adequate shelter and housing.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Joe Natuman said the government would provide for the people for at least the next three months.

Natuman said he hoped that the World Food Program would come on board and repeated that food and shelter were the top priorities.

The government revised its figure of 166,000 people affected by Pam up to 188,000 and admitted that the National Disaster Management office faced a huge logistical challenge to get relief supplies to these people.

The chairman of the National Disaster Committee, Jotham Napat, welcomed what he described as the tremendous efforts of the private sector, volunteers and international partners in supplying the roll out of relief supplies to the most affected communities around the country. “

“There has been some transport and logistic issues that have delayed the onward distribution of supplies in some islands and we are working with provincial authorities to sort these out,’’ he said.

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by Tony Wilson