Tropical cyclone Winston

Acting national advisor in charge of Psycho-social Support Sub cluster Dr Nirvana Karan says parents, guardians and teachers need to be aware of the “red flag” behaviours that can signal emotional upset or lingering trauma. 

“Lots of crying, not sleeping well, being really clingy to their parents or not wanting to go out of the house, being more quiet than usual or they might be asking a lot of questions as in what happened? How did it happen? Or they might be re-enacting certain parts of the disaster through play and drawing.”

Spokesperson Ewan Perrin said that number continued to rise as communication was restored to affected areas.

Mr Perrin said, at this stage, there was enough aid in the evacuation centres to go around.

"We've got sufficient essential resources - food, water, medical resources at the moment. We have been very fortunate, the international community has provided a lot of aid and assistance, a lot of materials for us as well.

"So we are able to top those up as we need. We just need to keep an eye on that and see how it goes over the next few days."