Australian and British volunteer teachers have been airlifted from a remote Vanuatuan island in the wake of cyclone Pam, despite many of the westerners not wanting to leave.
Five of 13 teachers working on Pentecost island with the gap-year charity group Lattitude were evacuated by Australian defence force (ADF) helicopters, including three who had told the Guardian less than an hour earlier that they wanted to stay.
It was not clear on Thursday whether the ADF had contacted the teenagers Zoe Marshall, from Australia, and Courtney Tilby, from New Zealand, who were the only Lattitude teachers who had not been in touch with their companions following the category-five storm, which left the island relatively untouched but cut off from other devastated parts of Vanuatu.
On Tanna island, where many buildings were flattened and there were seven reported deaths, Tom and Margaret Richards, Australian Presbyterian missionaries, contacted the Australian foreign affairs department through intermediaries to advise that they were safe, a relative said.
Another Australian, Jasper Lawson, who was at Sara airstrip in the north of Pentecost island with fellow volunteers Robin Baker, from Wales, and Reuben Fremmer, from England, said that damage from the cyclone had been limited on Pentecost and the volunteer teachers “want to stay because the communities need help here”.
“And we want to help. We hope we can stay teaching these kids. We’re really hoping that our company don’t, because of legal or insurance issues, make us go home. Hopefully we can stay, and if not I want to stay in any other capacity I can to help, because we care about the people of Vanuatu,” Lawson said.
Baker said: “I spoke to the woman looking after us and she said, we’ll survive this easily. There might be some imports coming in, like rice and crackers. We want to stay.”
He added that he wanted his parents to go ahead with their plans to visit Pentecost in two weeks’ time.
Despite expressing a wish to stay, they were on a helicopter to the capital, Port Vila, within the hour.
Baker told of being torn away from their idyllic routine of hammocks, the mildly narcotic drink kava and sandy beaches.
Lawson told reporters at the airport: “I just think this is a bit too much. It’s not Australians that need help.”
Another Lattitude volunteer on Pentecost, James Roberts, said before the evacuation that he could confirm that seven of the 13 teachers on the island were well and had heard from another four.
Roberts said another Australian, Stephanie Miller from Brisbane, who lived on the island with her Ni-Vanuatu husband had been confirmed safe and well.
Baker said the group had no reason to believe that Marshall and Tilby, who taught near the village of Namaram, were in trouble despite not having heard from them.
Pentecost largely escaped the severe damage inflicted on much of the archipelago by the cyclone, he said.
“Lots of people, especially in our area, were well prepared. They had bananas on the roof and tied the roofs down. There were strong winds but it wasn’t really that bad at all. We were surprised. Only the traditional structures – palm houses, some kitchens – went down, but not really that many,” Baker said.
Lawson implored tourists to overcome their fears of the cyclone and keep coming to an island that relied so heavily upon them.
“I know Port Vila has been hit bad, same as Tanna, but the people need money from tourism because it’s such a part of their GDP and without tourism they’ll be hit harder. So people should still come to Vanuatu,” he said. “It’s a beautiful country with beautiful people.”
Brett Moore, a spokesman for the charity World Vision, said after an aerial survey and the delivery of emergency food supplies to parts of Pentecost, that the island had sustained damage only really in the south-east, and was less hard hit than the islands to its south.
