Mr. Peter Power:

The point Deputy Crowe made about tensions and the blame game is well made. One need only read the national daily newspapers, which we are keeping in touch with, over the past week to realise the position. Clearly, the assignment of blame has started. Much of it has to do with the fact that local government has been effectively wiped out. The houses of the people who worked in local government are gone. Their first and foremost concern has been to look after their immediate families, determine whether they are lost or injured and how to care for their children. If there were a flood in a constituency one would expect that the local authority would row in and start mobilising, but that was not an option in this area. The fact that the municipal offices were also wiped out did not help either.

UNICEF works through government systems. We are there at the invitation of the Government, and part of the reason we are effective is that we are able to operate at scale with government systems. Building up the capacity to deal with this emergency via the government, local and municipal systems is important. The point is well made.

Deputy Crowe is absolutely right about unburied bodies. It is a big issue. We walked past corpses and the smell is something I will not forget for a long time. There is tension in the air over that because people, even in death, should have dignity. Many do not, and that is causing some tension. There is a question over whether there should have been a mass burial - something like that took place last Friday or Saturday - while some claim there should be individual graves, and this is causing some tension.

Anyway, it comes back to the fact that it is difficult to explain just how much damage has been done. Everywhere one goes one sees rubble. There are no buildings any more, only rubble. It is an unbelievable mess.