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SALT LAKE CITY — Four days after the South Pacific's worst tropical storm since 2002 ripped through Vanuatu, the local LDS mission president made contact with 11 missionaries on a remote island.
Vanuatu Port Vila Mission President Larry Brewer established contact Tuesday with missionary leaders on the island of Tanna, which took a direct hit from Cyclone Pam, a ferocious, category-five storm featuring 185 mph winds.
Brewer warned all of the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solmon Islands of the cyclone two to three days before it hit.
Concern remained, however, because the force of the storm damaged 90 percent of Vanuatu's buildings, according to the nation's president, and news reports said it destroyed or damaged every school in Vanuatu's island chain.
Reports Monday said the 11 missionaries on Tanna were in the care of a school official in what was considered a safe building.
On Tuesday, the church issued a news release that the 11 were indeed safe.
LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said Tuesday morning that Brewer continues to work to establish communication with a handful of missionaries, but he anticipates those missionaries are well, too.
Communications remain difficult in remote areas of the island nation. In neighboring regions affected by the storm like New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, all LDS missionaries are safe and accounted for.
Tuesday's release also said LDS Church leaders planned to charter a small plane on Wednesday in Port Vila. Two missionaries will accompany food and other relief supplies on the flight to Tanna, then pick up the 11 missionaries there and bring them back to the nation's capital of Port Vila.
Church leaders in Port Vila purchased food and other emergency supplies on Monday and began to distribute them to church members and others sheltered at LDS meetinghouses in Vanuatu, and to those who have left to start rebuilding their homes.
LDS meetinghouses — many of them made of solid concrete — on the main island of Efate and elsewhere have become shelters for Latter-day Saints and others who lost their homes. ABC News reported that 85 percent of homes in Port Vila were destroyed.
Brewer gathered all 40 of the missionaries on the island of Efate to the mission home in Port Vila before the storm hit. The mission home was damaged when struck by a tree, but nobody was hurt.
LDS leaders from the faith's Pacific Area office in Auckland, New Zealand, are scheduled to fly to Port Vila on Wednesday to help local leaders work to meet the needs of cyclone victims.
They also will try to set up partnerships with other faiths and relief agencies to quickly distribute aid.
The missionaries in Port Vila have begun to help families with the clean up. Some have started to help rebuild homes.
More than 6,100 Latter-day Saints live in Vanuatu, which has 31 LDS congregations and a total population of 260,000.
The LDS Church asked people who want to help to donate to the faith's humanitarian fund through their local congregations or via LDS Philanthropies.
