Cyclone Harold Interviews: Latano Primary School, North Pentecost, Vanuatu

Interview with the principal at Latano primary school: Masten Garae. He has been at the school for 13 years; however, it is his first year as principal. The cyclone came in the evening on the Monday. They did hear a warning but it was very late (in the afternoon). At that point, they tried to evacuate the village to the school buildings. Some people went to the school to shelter; however, others decided to stay in their houses. There was quite a bit of damage in the village. Some houses fell down. A lot of the toilet outhouses and kitchens fell down (kitchens are often separate buildings in villages), trees fell down, particularly, fruit/citrus trees. In the run up to the cyclone, people were feeling very frightened as they were having flashbacks of Cyclone Pam. Thankfully, they didn’t get the worst of Cyclone Harold where they were. In the immediate vicinity of the school and village, there were no injuries. However, on the low lying coastal villages, the ocean swells completely destroyed the houses and washed everyone’s possessions away. There were certain exposed villages on the hills that were also badly affected. In Aute, all the houses had fallen down.

The school has not really suffered any damage and Masten thinks this is more to do with the shelter provided by the surrounding terrain rather than the buildings themselves. Crops are completely destroyed. The main income in the area is from selling Kava. When they went to check on their Kava plantations, they couldn’t find any. It had been blown completely away and no trace was left behind. The most pressing need in the area at the moment is food. Within 3-4 weeks time, they will run out of food. At the moment they can eat things from their gardens which weren’t so badly damaged but there is a limited supply and it

will run out after those 3-4 weeks. They have received no aid yet. A few days before the cyclone, the school had been distributing the home school packages due to school closure after Covid-19. However, now the parents are telling the teachers that all of the work has been destroyed by the Cyclone. Thus, Masten has decided it is not appropriate for the teachers to give out new home school packages as there is nowhere for the families to put them and there is nowhere for the children to work. They will thus wait until things return to normal before going back to schoolwork.

Masten says thank you for visiting and any help would be much appreciated as many children don’t have homes, and there is a real big problem with water at the moment. They are really in need and if anyone can help, please do.

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