NOUMEA, New Caledonia\u2014With the extent of the impacts of tropical cyclone Pam on Pacific Island nations not yet known\u2014and indeed still unfolding\u2014the Secretariat of the Pacific Community is on standby to provide technical assistance to the affected countries.<\/p>\n
SPC Director-General Dr. Colin Tukuitonga said SPC is ready to deploy teams to Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands, depending on the governments\u2019 needs in the wake of the severe tropical cyclone.<\/p>\n
Tukuitonga yesterday wrote to Vanuatu\u2019s National Disaster Management Office to offer SPC assistance, given the greatest impact of the cyclone is expected to be felt in Vanuatu.<\/p>\n
With the world\u2019s governments currently meeting in Sendai, Japan, to approve a new global framework on disaster risk reduction, Tukuitonga said Cyclone Pam was a stark reminder of how highly vulnerable to natural disasters Pacific Islands\u2019 populations and economies are.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Secretariat is keeping a very close eye on developments and the path Tropical Cyclone Pam is taking,\u201d Tukuitonga said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs has been SPC\u2019s longstanding practice, we are ready to deploy disaster response teams to reinforce government capacity in National Disaster Management Offices and provide a range of technical assistance based on the governments\u2019 specific needs, and in concert with the United Nations and the Red Cross.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf necessary we will recall our disaster management experts who are currently part of the Pacific delegation participating in the UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pacific Community is close-knit and our thoughts and prayers are with the governments and people of Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu,\u201d Tukuitonga said.<\/p>\n
In an SPC video message released for the world conference\u2014www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mYYRHPLdX3Y\u2014the Director-General appealed for stronger action: \u201cWhatever form a post-2015 framework takes, it\u2019s important that the world community adopts a stronger approach to disaster risk reduction.\u201d (SPC)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NOUMEA, New Caledonia\u2014With the extent of the impacts of tropical cyclone Pam on Pacific Island…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[170,985,166,527],"class_list":["post-193934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pacific","tag-japan","tag-kiribati","tag-spc","tag-vanuatu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}