The clean-up following the Vanuatu earthquake continues. Photo credit: RNZ Pacific.
Source: RNZ Pacific
The rescue team sent to Vanuatu over Christmas to aid the nation’s disaster response following a deadly 7.3 magnitude earthquake has returned to Aotearoa New Zealand.
After a challenging 10-day mission, the team landed in Auckland on Friday and attended a banquet and debrief at Auckland City Fire Station.
Urban Search and Rescue Taskforce Leader Ken Cooper says the team was deployed at a special time of year for families, and showed ultimate professionalism.
“The wellbeing of our team is critical to us so we’ll undertake a debrief of the team and they will receive time off to recover before returning to their stations, and we also ensure we check in with them over the following weeks to ensure they are recovering well,” Ken says.
Despite a 24-hour delay caused by an engine fault on one of the Hercules planes carrying the team and its equipment, Ken says they hit the ground running.
“On arrival we were put to work straight away, we received some taskings from the Vanuatu government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and we undertook some search and rescue of some properties including the [New Zealand] High Commission and another building known as the Billabong building.
“Once we had passed through the search and rescue phase, we moved into the assessment of damaged buildings … [We] provide a report back to the Vanuatu Government and that allows them to prioritise the most damaged buildings to ensure there’s no further risk to the community.”
Ken says it has been a challenging and emotional mission, but a bright spot included a team invite to a community lunch on Christmas Day.
“The team were invited to a community Christmas celebration; we were welcomed into a village we had provided evacuation information to so they in return invited us to spend time with them…we had a very special Christmas day lunch and then we returned to our taskings.
“Christmas Day was a normal working day for us, so each day we started at around about 5:30 in the morning because it was cooler.
“We purposely paused to come together as a team, and we did some reflection on the tasks we had undertaken and we remembered the families back home.
“It was a really special moment for them to call home and receive video messages.”
Although the team has returned for some much-needed rest, Ken says the disaster is not over.
“Although we’ve returned as a team, the New Zealand response will continue – there will be support.
“We’ve offered support to the engineers and I’m sure aid will continue from the New Zealand Government if requested by Vanuatu.”
