TANNA: Aid was due to reach some of cyclone-hit Vanuatu's worst affected islands Wednesday but others remained isolated, with flights over the Pacific nation showing desperate villagers spelling out the letter "H" for help.
Relief agencies are battling tough conditions and logistical challenges in the sprawling archipelago with a lack of landing strips and deep water ports hampering their efforts to reach distant islands and get a better grip on the full scale of the disaster.
Vanuatu Prime Minister Joe Natuman said "it'll be at least a week or two" before the situation becomes clearer.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revised its death toll down to 11 from 24 but said it was expected to rise, and aid groups continued to paint a bleak picture, warning of large-scale property destruction and shortages of food and clean water.
The southern islands of Tanna and Erromango bore the full brunt of Severe Cyclone Pam when it barrelled in late Friday, and Oxfam, the UN and CARE Australia said assessments showed widespread devastation with entire villages destroyed.
"In Tanna at Lenakel, the provincial capital, 70 percent of houses are damaged," CARE's Tom Perry told AFP in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila.
The whole township of Waesisi on Tanna's northeast coast was "inundated with water... and 100 percent damaged".
"There're no buildings standing," he said.
Reconnaissance flights by military aircraft from Australia and France "found severe and widespread damage across the larger islands of Tanna, Erromango and Efate," the UN said.
"Less damage was found on the smaller islands in Vanuatu's southern region, which include Anatom, Aniwa and Futuna."
Aid teams reached Tanna, home to 30,000 people, for the first time on Tuesday and more humanitarian workers were flying in to deliver aid. A ferry full of relief supplies was expected Thursday.
The aid, from organisations such as Oxfam and the Australian military, includes basic medical supplies, water and sanitation kits and tarpaulins.
Many of the archipelago's 80 islands remain cut off and Oxfam country director in Port Vila, Colin Collett van Rooyen, said flights over some of them saw people signalling for help.
"The aerial assessments of Ambryn island reported large white 'Hs' marked out on the ground by people signalling for help, and on Tongoa island people holding up mirrors also signalling for help," he said.
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