Richard Cagoy

The city, Tomasin, which you just mentioned, a city of about 400,000 people, has been devastated.

Roads have been cut off.

If you look even at people's homes, they're not habitable.

The roofs are blown off.

You know, the port, which is the main core activity of the area.

has been quite destroyed as a result of this.

We're also hearing that villages which were literally on the path of the cyclone have also been devastated.

The only thing is that the authorities have not been able to carry out a full assessment just to paint a picture in terms of the scale, in terms of human loss and also the devastation that was caused to residents and institutions around there.

It's really difficult because at the moment the national response has just been focused on the town of Tumasina.

They are just using whatever they can at their disposal with rescue and emergency services have just been mobilised around the city.

trying to reach as many people as they can.

The only challenge is that roads have been destroyed, you know, major, major roads.

So access is actually very difficult.

And even for those that have been affected, even getting relief supplies to them, food, water and medicine has really been quite difficult.

So that's why actually the president appealed for international support just to help them with this process.