UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock on Wednesday said that the disaster in northern Bahamas in the Caribbean caused by Hurricane Dorian was "unprecedented," while urging the international community to extend support.

Speaking to reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York, down the line from the Bahamas late on Wednesday, Lowcock said that the damage was on an "enormous scale," causing "vast devastation" and leaving around 70,000 in need of life-saving aid on the two islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco.

Lowcock travelled to the Bahamas on Wednesday to help assess what is needed from the international community and express the United Nations' solidarity with the people and the Government of the Bahamas.

He said access was "still very limited" to the islands for the rescue and humanitarian relief effort, and noted the scale of the disaster was unprecedented, for what is, essentially, a prosperous country.

Much of the response was being paid for by the government, he said, but given the scale of the disaster, it was appropriate for the international community to respond to the country's request for assistance.

Following further aerial surveys Thursday and more data collection, "hopefully, very soon after that, we will be able to get teams on the ground," he said, adding that he had told the Bahamian Prime Minister that he would release 1 million U.S. dollars "immediately, from the Central Emergency Response Fund, to deal with exactly the set of priorities that he has identified."

"It's very unusual, for 20 percent of the population of a country to be very severely impacted by a single event like this... The Bahamas has certainly never seen anything on the scale," he said.

"It's true that the numbers of people, given the overall scale of emergencies we deal with around the world is not as big as in some other places, but a disaster of such epic proportions on a single country in a single incident is very very unusual." Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)