This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/07/uk-could-send-further-ship-to-overseas-territories-hit-by-hurricane

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
UK could send further ship to overseas territories hit by Hurricane Irma UK releases £32m in Hurricane Irma aid after complaints over initial response
(about 1 hour later)
The British defence secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, has announced that HMS Ocean is to be deployed to the Caribbean as part of a military task force responding to the devastation caused by Hurricane Irma. The UK government has released £32m in emergency aid for the British overseas territories hit by Hurricane Irma and dispatched a military task group to the Caribbean, after complaints of an inadequate response to the storm.
HMS Ocean will supplement the UK’s nascent effort to prepare for the reconstruction of the hurricane-damaged British Overseas Territories of Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands. Hurricane Irma is also on course to cause severe damage in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Several hundred troops from the Royal Marines and Royal Engineers will travel to the region on RAF transporter planes. The task group includes the ageing ship HMS Ocean and hundreds of marines and royal engineers, who will be sent in RAF transport planes. HMS Ocean, carrying at least three helicopters, will not reach the area for another 10 to 14 days.
The decision was taken at an emergency meeting of Cobra on Thursday, convened as the scale of the destruction on the islands became clear. The ship is currently deployed in the Mediterranean, and is due to be decommissioned next March before being sold, possibly to the Brazilian navy. It will work alongside RFA Mounts Bay, a landing ship which had already been deployed to the region as a precautionary measure and is being sent to Anguilla.
HMS Ocean, currently in the Mediterranean and due to be decommissioned in the spring, will take 10 to 14 days to arrive in the region. It will carry at least three helicopters, and will supplement the rescue and reconstruction work already due to start on Thursday, when FRA Mounts Bay auxillary, carrying bulldozers, water, shelters, one helicopter and 40 Royal Marines, arrives in the region. The increased resources, and military hardware, came after an overnight assessment sent to the cabinet emergency committee Cobra concluded the devastation on the British overseas territories of Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands was worse than feared. Aid was increased from a planned £12m to £32m after Cobra met.
An MoD spokesman said: “There will be a range of strategic aircraft, helicopters, and the task group will be made up of marines, engineers, medical advisers. At least person has been confirmed dead in Anguilla, there are concerns that another British overseas territory – the low-lying Turks and Caicos Islands – is in the line of the storm and likely to be battered. Evacuations have begun and tropical-force rains were expected to begin on Thursday afternoon local time.
“The numbers and timelines of how many and when are still being worked out. Defending the initial government deployment of Mounts Bay, Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said: “These are our people and we are going to do everything possible to help them. It’s exactly the right type of ship for this, with its helicopters and its marines, and it’s already at work, helping the people of Anguilla, helping to clear roads, helping to restore power and get an accurate picture for the governor of exactly what’s happening on the island. So we’re there and we’re helping, but obviously this is a huge challenge.”
“We are also working out which airfields are available in the region.” On Thursday morning Theresa May spoke to the French president Emmanuel Macron in a bid to coordinate efforts. She later said her “thoughts and prayers” were with all those affected.
He added: “The aim is to offer support, hopefully clear the roads and get as much support there ahead of Hurricane Jose which is due in the coming days.” France, which directly administers its Caribbean territories, has already sent a minister and hundreds of soldiers to the region.
Hurricane Jose, the successor to Hurricane Irma, is also on course tohit the Caribbean, following a broadly similar path. The British PM said: “It’s the most powerful storm to hit the Atlantic, it’s brought devastation in its wake. It’s destroyed buildings and infrastructure, but it’s had such an impact on people’s lives because people have seen their livelihoods completely destroyed, and of course some people are missing, and some will have lost loved ones.
Fallon said the prime minister, Theresa May, had spoken on the phone with the French president Emmanuel Macron to coordinate their responses to hurricane Irma. “We have taken action, we have moved swiftly. We have people on the ground, £32m has been released.
The move to deploy HMS Ocean comes after Dorothea Hodge, a former UK representative to Anguilla, criticised the government’s response to the hurricane as “pathetic” and “disgraceful”. “We must not forget that there is a further storm on the way, and that the Turks and Caicos Islands still lie in the path of Hurricane Irma. But that won’t stop us from providing the assistance that is needed, and doing everything we can to help.”
Foreign office minister Sir Alan Duncan said Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands had been badly damaged, and he expected the storm to hit the Turks and Caicos Islands – another British overseas territory – on Thursday. The move to deploy HMS Ocean and increase funding came after Josephine Gumbs-Conner, a barrister from Anguilla, claimed on Thursday morning that the UK’s preparations for and response to the storm had been “sorely lacking”.
The impact was devastating and appeared to be an unfolding catastrophe, he said, adding: “We have never seen a hurricane on this scale in our lifetime. We will have to make assessments, but knowing this is a whopper.” She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the UK government should have “done what the French did in St Martin – who made sure that they had military on the ground so that the response given is timely”.
He insisted the government’s RAF auxiliary had been on standby to help the islands affected by Hurricane Irma. The island’s essential services, including hospitals and police stations, were in a “limping position”, she said, after the hurricane caused “nuclear bomb devastation”.
He said there would have to be a “massive and comprehensive” response across the affected areas, but said the UK relief effort would initially be focused on its overseas territories. On Wednesday evening, Dorothea Hodge, a former UK representative to Anguilla, criticised the government’s response to the hurricane as “pathetic” and “disgraceful”.
Hurricane Irma, now the most powerful Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, made landfall on the islands of the north-east Caribbean on Wednesday morning, causing major flooding and damage to buildings. Hodge told the Guardian: “It’s absolutely disgraceful that it has taken the whole day for [international development secretary] Priti Patel to respond to the worst hurricane we have seen in a British territory since the 1920s.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the international development secretary, Priti Patel, announced the deployment of three UK humanitarian experts and a British naval ship to the affected region. The French and the Dutch have permanent military bases in the Caribbean, but the British forces are kept at sea ready to respond to UK territories spread out across the region.
Hodge told the Guardian: “It’s absolutely disgraceful that it has taken the whole day for Priti Patel to respond to the worst hurricane we have seen in a British territory since the 1920s.” The foreign office minister Sir Alan Duncan said the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory, had only been swiped by the hurricane but that Anguilla received its full blast.“The initial assessment is that the damage has been severe and, in places, critical,” Duncan told MPs. “The British Virgin Islands were also not spared the hurricane’s full force when it passed through yesterday morning.”
On Thursday, Duncan said £12m of Department for International Development funds was available to provide humanitarian assistance. “We are pulling out all the stops to provide the utmost assistance once we know who is in greatest need,” he said. “We must appreciate that this is a massive, perhaps unprecedented, natural disaster. We have not seen a hurricane on this scale in our lifetime, so we will have to assess the damage and respond as best we possibly can, knowing that this is a whopper.”
Four DfID hurricane specialists had been flown to the region, and a Foreign Office emergency centre was working full-time to assess the scale of the damage. DfID was ready to charter planes if an evacuation was necessary. He refused to be drawn about the extent to which climate change was making hurricanes more frequent, arguing the focus had to be on the emergency rescue.
Giving his first assessment, Duncan said Anguilla received “the full blast with the impact severe and in places critical”. The British Virgin Islands “had not been spared, with the initial assessment of severe damage and in need of extensive humanitarian assistance”. Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recorded history, made landfall on the islands of the north-east Caribbean on Wednesday morning, causing major flooding and damage to buildings. At least nine people are confirmed to have died and thousands more remain in shelters, their homes damaged or destroyed. In Puerto Rico, almost a million people are without power and 50,000 without water, according to the US territory’s department of emergency relief.
The impact of the hurricane on Montserrat, by contrast, was not as severe as first thought, he said. Travel association Abta said thousands of Britons are believed to be on holiday in the Caribbean at the moment.
Duncan said he had spoken to the London representative of the British Virgin Islands, but contact with officials was proving difficult.
Speaking about the effect of Hurricane Irma in Anguilla on Wednesday, Hodge said: “Homes have been destroyed, schools and the only hospital badly damaged, and already one death is being reported, and more is to come as there are two more hurricanes scheduled to hit Anguilla in the next few days. Anguillans are all British nationals, as British as the Falklands or Gibraltar.
“In comparison to the French president who has set up an emergency fund, an emergency hotline and a reconstruction fund, her [Patel’s] response after the storm has passed is absolutely pathetic.”
The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, spoke with the chief minister of Anguilla on Wednesday evening and said the Foreign Office was in constant contact with British overseas territories.
“There are tens of thousands of British people there and clearly we are updating our travel advice the whole time for people who are going there,” Johnson said.
Macron has dispatched the country’s overseas territories minister, Annick Girardin, to the region, but Duncan pointed out that the French overseas territories were under the direct control of Paris, while the British overseas territories were independently governed. “We do not govern these islands,” he said.