The president of Vanuatu said on Sunday he fears the impact from a devastating tropical storm will be "the very, very, very worst" in isolated outer islands but damage was still being assessed. President Baldwin Lonsdale said most houses in the capital Port Vila had been damaged or destroyed by Cyclone Pam, a category 5 storm. "People are finding shelter where they can live for the night," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Sendai, Japan, where he was attending a UN disaster recovery conference. "The state of damage is still being assessed, we do not know exactly the extent of the damage...The number of casualties I do hope will be minor." At least eight people have been confirmed dead but aid workers expect that number to rise sharply as more information becomes available.
