SENDAI, JAPAN — The president of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu appealed to a U.N. disaster conference Saturday for help as a powerful cyclone swept across his archipelago, driving painfully home the rising risks from extreme weather and climate change.
"I am speaking to you today with a heart that is so heavy. I do not really know what impact the cyclone has had on Vanuatu," Vanuatu's president, Baldwin Lonsdale, told the U.N. World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in the northeastern Japanese city of Sendai.
"I stand to appeal on behalf of the government and the people to give a helping hand in this disaster," he said.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the conference earlier he met with Lonsdale to express condolences and solidarity. The U.N. said it was prepared to deploy emergency response teams to the islands.
Preventing disaster is "everybody's business," Ban said, urging better help and more safeguards for the world's poorest and weakest people as the threat from climate-related disasters grows.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their talk in Sendai, March 14, 2015, on the sidelines of the World Conference on Disaster Risk and Reduction. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT AP
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