Devastation everywhere a month after Cyclone Pam

Sorovanga Primary School students pose for a photo while NZVR volunteers talk with the community chief and school teachers about the rebuild.

There is an irony that we have to fly through a tropical cyclone over the Pacific to make our way to cyclone-stricken Vanuatu.

But we make our way through Cyclone Solo to reach Port Vila safely and land on Sunday morning.

The air is hot and sticky as we drive around trying to get our bearings and witness the destruction of Cyclone Pam from a month earlier.

Luke Tyrrell, Martin Craig and Kevin Heath on the site where we will begin building today.

Trees, some as tall as 30m, are smashed and snapped in half like toothpicks.

Villages made of corrugated iron are broken into pieces and pieces of metal are scattered over the landscape.

The black smoke of rubbish burning can be seen and smelled kilometres away, clouding over certain parts of the city and the people here still aimlessly wander the streets with looks of disbelief and defeat on their faces. Cyclone Pam has had a devastating impact on this third-world nation.

Yesterday marked the one-month anniversary of Pam unleashing her fury.

The figures are sobering. There are 166,600 people affected and 110,000 of those are without access to safe drinking water, while 96 per cent of crops have been destroyed on the volcanic islands.

Like everybody else on the New Zealand Vanuatu Rebuild mission, I arrive thinking what a big difference we can make during our two weeks.

But now I'm here I realise how big the job actually is. We sort out our money and communication systems, and next on the list is to pick up the tonne of materials we sent a few days earlier.

It's here that we nearly have a disaster of our own. Our shipment of tools, materials, food and water is nearly sent over to another island the night we arrive.

Airport staff tell us it has been taken down to the port and is ready to be shipped on a Navy boat at 8.30pm.

The sun sets just before 6pm here and it is almost dark when we get down to the port to find our supplies already loaded on the boat.

One of my team-mates quickly finds the captain who finds our equipment so we can get it back.

Villages surround the area where we stay and we have been told because they are so close to town they have been able to receive aid more easily and people are able to keep working to support their families and communities.

But communities such as Black Sands, right in the centre of town, still show the brunt of the disaster.

Black Sands Sorovanga community chief Abel David tells me the devastation within his community is still very real.

The surrounding community houses about 100 people but almost 300 children from all over Port Vila are schooled in Sorovanga Primary School, which has four classrooms reduced to rubble.

Schooling the children now continues in makeshift tents and structures on the site but this is where we will start our work in rebuilding classes.

Sorovanga primary student Marie, 12, says the storm flooded and damaged her home and one of her classrooms is also lost.

I tell her we are coming back to help rebuild one of them for her.

Her big brown eyes brighten instantly.

"Thank you so much," she replies.