Relief supplies begin to arrive in Cyclone devastated parts of Fiji

Fiji is picking up the pieces after Cyclone Tomas, and facing a race against time to prevent the spread of disease.

Presenter: Sam Seke

Speaker: Tim Sutton, Deputy Representative for UNICEF in the Pacific

Listen: Windows Media

SUTTON: We've had people involved in the two fly overs that were done last week and the RNZAF, did a fly over of the northern division and on Wednesday and the Royal Australian Air Force did a fly over of the Lau group on Thursday, so we have had people on both of those flights and a good view now of the damage from the air. We have teams in the north and we have a person on the ship that left yesterday, which will be the first substantial relief supplies for the Lau group, that ship left yesterday and will be arriving on Lau later today and so yes, we're getting people out there and we're getting a much better understanding of the situation on the ground.

SEKE: But may be if not in on Lau, what about the other areas? Have sort of relief supplies started arriving to these areas already?

SUTTON: Yes, last week, a lot of supplies moved up from Suva. We had a lot prepositioned and I know Red Cross and others also had supplies here and they have all been moved up to north division and as I say quite a lot of supplies have gone on the boat that left yesterday for the Lau group. So the supplies are getting out. I am a kind of impatient person and I want this all to happen a lot more quickly as I am sure everyone does. But it is starting to move and supplies are getting out there. We'll have teams in the north out in the field and we will be monitoring the distribution of supplies over the coming days. But we are in a race against time. The water and sanitation facilities and services that were there have been very badly damaged. The health facilities are overwhelmed and we know that we have typhoid in the area and the conditions for an outbreak or an even larger outbreak are in place, so we are in a race against time to make sure that people can access clean water and have safe hygiene to prevent the spread of a very, very nasty disease.

SEKE: Now on food, what sort of damage has there been to food crops and water supplies?

SUTTON: There has been a lot of damage to food crops, salt inundation, sea inundation and flooding, and land slides they have all conspired to damage food crops. We still do not have an accurate assessment of that damage, but that will come over the next few days, but from the aerial photos that we have seen there has been a lot of inundation of gardens and there has also been a lot of landslides and flooding from rivers. So there has been quite considerable damage to food crops.

SEKE: And you mentioned typhoid and all that. What are you doing on this front?

SUTTON: Well, it's clean water, getting water containers out there, with water purification tablets and the information the people need to use those, for getting those out as quickly as possible and getting soap to the affected population as well. We've delivered I think to the relief mission 10,000 bars of soap and we've got more going just so the people can practice good hygiene, that's the critical thing to do at the moment to stop the spread of this disease even more.