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The Pacific island nations are looking well-prepared for a possibly worse-than-usual cyclone season despite countries such as Tonga coping with a drought after a dry year, a senior New Zealand Red Cross official said Monday.
Emergency response organizations had raised concerns in September and October that Tonga could get hit with a double whammy of a fiercer cyclone season, as a result of an El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific, and a long-running drought.
Red Cross international and disaster management manager Andrew McKie, who returned from Tonga earlier this month, told Xinhua the cyclone risk was "maybe slightly elevated" this coming season.
"The still having drought and it's early on in the cyclone season, but they are expected to get a couple more cyclones than they normally get," McKie said in a phone interview.
"Right throughout the Pacific they're looking at eight to 12 cyclones between now and April and most of those are likely to happen in February to April, so it's going to be quite late and an increased activity for Tonga, with possibly two or more cyclones passing close to main island groups."
Meanwhile, drought was still affecting about 4,000 people on the Ha'apai island group and some of the outer-lying islands, but people were getting by with relief supplies and equipment.
"We've got a small desalination plant that does communities up to 350 people and that's been circulating around. I know they are they are actually sending water up to islands that are quite close to the capital by boat. They're also looking at improving people' s ability to collect rainwater, making sure their guttering is repaired so when it does rain they can actually harvest the rainwater," said McKie.
"It's not a critical situation at the moment, but their tanks which have got water are getting fairly dry. I think they are looking at rain in the next month at least."
The approaching cyclone season is expected to hit Tonga, Niue, Samoa and the Cook Islands the hardest.
"They're well stocked up for the cyclone season as well with emergency relief aid. They are very well stocked up for any immediate response and then we can support them from New Zealand for any emergency replenishment or bigger operation," said McKie.
Since Tropical Cyclone Ian struck Tonga in January, leaving one person dead and hundreds homeless, the New Zealand Red Cross has been stepping up cooperation with governments, NGOs and military forces in the region, and developing a disaster response plan with Red Cross organizations in Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Pacific community leaders in New Zealand.
Meteorologists are saying there's a 70-percent chance this southern summer of an El Nino weather event, a disruptive oscillation of the weather patterns brought about by a coupling of warmer that usual waters and atmospheric pressure changes in the Pacific.
