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SALT LAKE CITY — All but two Mormon missionaries in Fiji have been accounted for, while LDS Church leaders are still trying to contact missionaries in Vanuatu.
"Contact has not been possible so far with missionaries in the outer islands of the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission," a church news release said.
At least one witness is calling Cyclone Pam the "Vanuatu Monster," according to USA Today, with winds reaching more than 150 mph.
A UNICEF official told CNN that Cyclone Pam left the capital city of Port Vila looking "like a bomb's gone off," and the Australian Red Cross said via Twitter that "humanitarian needs will be enormous."
Missionaries serving directly in Port Vila are safe, the church said.
Phone lines are down in the remote nation of Tuvalu, where the two unaccounted for missionares from the Suva Fiji Mission are living, so church leaders have not been able to reach them, Elder Adolf Johansson, a church leader in Suva, told church headquarters in Salt Lake City.
The church is sheltering members and others in meetinghouses in Vanuatu due to the destruction of homes.
The news release said LDS ecclesiastical and Welfare Department leaders are assessing needs in Vanuatu, Fiji and other island nations today.
"We are deeply concerned for Latter-day Saints and all others caught in the path of this devastating cyclone," said Elder Kevin W. Pearson, the church's Pacific Area president. "We are praying for their safety, and are working to understand where our resources will be needed in the coming days so we can assist as quickly and as effectively as we can."
Vanuatu is a volcanic archipelago of 82 islands about 1,000 miles east of Australia.
Fiji lies farther east.
Cyclone Pam is dissipating, but it is expected to drop heavy rains in New Zealand. Email: twalch@deseretnews.com
