Residents in storm-wrecked areas of Micronesia yesterday appealed for help as a cleanup began on the worst affected islands after Typhoon Maysak swept through the region on its way toward the Philippines.
“We can do with all the help we can get,” Courtney Stinnett at the Truk Stop Hotel dive shop on the main island of Weno in Chuuk State said.
A state of emergency has been declared in Chuuk, the largest region in the Federated States of Micronesia, where five people were killed and houses and crops destroyed by Maysak.
Photo: AFP
The typhoon took three days to cross the central Pacific archipelago before heading out to sea and toward the Philippines, but relief workers said it could be a year before some land was restored enough to plant crops again.
“The storm ripped the iron roofs off houses. About 95 percent of the homes were damaged,” Stinnett said, adding that residents were gathering scattered sheets of iron to hastily make their wrecked homes rainproof.
“There are two live aboards [vessels] which have significant damage after being swept on to the reef. The crew had to jump off and swim to land. Quite a few were injured, but all survived,” she said.
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) sent an aircraft to survey the damage on Ulithi atoll, which was hit hard when the eye of the storm passed over on Tuesday night with sustained winds of 260kph.
Most concrete structures withstood the fury, but everything else was damaged, PMA Pacific administrator Melinda Espinosa said in an e-mail.
“Because Ulithi is just a little above sea level, in some areas the sea rose, destroying crops and the soil. It will take time to desalinate the soil — approximately a year until the crops can be replanted,” she said.
In Chuuk, Stinnett said they were reliant on ships to bring in relief supplies, but they may first be diverted to the many small islands where residents lost their boats and had no way of going for help.
On neighboring Guam, the Bank of Guam and the Ayuda Foundation have teamed up to prepare medical packages which will either be air dropped or delivered by boat to the worst hit islands.
The Guam weather office said the maximum sustained winds of Maysak had decreased to 225kph yesterday and it would continue to weaken before hitting the Philippines over the weekend.
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