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In Tonga, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are helping assess damage from Cyclone Gita.
With the support of the Australian government, the World Bank has now started work and has transported a fleet of drones to Tonga to provide a comprehensive visual assessment of the damage and identify priority sectors.
“Our work in mapping the damage wreaked by Cyclone Gita will be crucial to helping the government of Tonga to determine priority areas for recovery and reconstruction,” World Bank country director for Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands Michel Kerf said.
Kerf said the World Bank has been called on to lead the immediate damage assessment process in the aftermath of recent natural disasters in the Pacific, including cyclones Winston (Fiji, 2016) and Pam (Vanuatu, 2015).
The World Bank also partnered with the governments of Australia and New Zealand, the Asian Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme to perform the assessment work.
Seven days after the weather event, the Tongan government received a payout of more than US$3.5 million from the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC) – the first payout made by the region’s first catastrophe risk insurance platform established in 2016.
PCRIC was formed as part of the World Bank’s regional project PCRAFI: Furthering Disaster Risk Finance in the Pacific, which provides technical assistance to 14 Pacific Island countries, with financial support from Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
“Despite the tragic circumstances, it has been good to see the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company delivering much-needed relief through its disaster insurance system,” Kerf noted.
