Transcript
CAMERON DIVER: It appears that most of the damage has actually been sustained outside of Noumea, in northern parts of the mainland of New Caledonia, as Cyclone Cook came across from the east to the western side. We have had reports for example that there is significant damage to vegetation across that middle swathe of the island [Grant Terre] and obviously there have been some significant problems with electricity supply for populations north of Noumea, where as of about 6 o'clock this morning there were about 70,000 who had been without electricity since last night. So it appears there has been infrastructure damage, a lot of damage to the natural vegetation, but in terms of damage to the actual human population, that's been reasonably insignificant. There are just reports of four people who have been lightly injured overnight, and we will have to wait and see whether that figure grows as more news comes in from isolated areas.
DON WISEMAN: So the area to the north of Noumea that it ran across, there are very people living there?
CD: There are villages there, there are some larger centres of population like the town of Bourail and others. There are nickel mines that are there, so there are always a number of people that are there, but it is certainly less densely populated than Noumea.
DW: In terms of activity then in Noumea, what's it like? Is it back to normal?
CD: It is getting back to normal. I think most businesses will be back to business as usual tomorrow, in particular because the 'safety and security' phase of the cyclone alert system that they have here was only completely downgraded from midday today. So this afternoon, progressively commercial and professional activity will start to get back to normal and then from tomorrow it should be business as usual.
DW: In terms of the nickel mines, those ones that are in the main area hit, they might be closed for a while.
CD: Well it seems that most of them will looking to get back on track from tomorrow. There have been reports coming through, for example the SLN, which is the principal mining company here, asking its employees to call in and say when they could be back on board, depending where it is they live, and which mining site they work at. So again, depending on electricity supply, access to roading, things like that, it does look like the major industrial actors are looking to get back to business as usual as fast as they can.
DW: Now New Caledonia doesn't typically get hit by big cyclones does it. It's been quite a while - was it a cyclone back in 2003 that hit the islands?
CD: Yeah that's right. It's been more than 10 years since a major cyclone has been through New Caledonia so the islands have been extremely fortunate, when you look at the number of cyclones, especially Winston last year and Pam the year before that hit Fiji and Vanuatu respectively. So this was the first experience for a lot of people living here and I think that we are fortunate again to have local authorities that gave extremely clear instructions, very early, on how the general population should behave, the precautions they should take and people went about their business calmly, stayed inside as the alert phase was at its very highest, didn't put themselves and therefore anybody else at risk, and I think, to a large extent, that's meant that the human damage of the cyclone has been significantly reduced.
