WITNESSES on a flight over the cyclone-battered South Pacific island of Tikopia reported large-scale destruction and few signs of life yesterday.

In the first reconnaissance of the disaster, a freelance cameraman said that the isolated island had been denuded of almost all vegetation and that he saw only about 20 people walking around.

All contact was lost with Tikopia 24 hours before Cyclone Zoe hit the island on December 28. Solomon Islands officials said that they held grave fears for the 2,000 inhabitants of the remote outpost, which is more than 1,200 miles (1,900km) northeast of Australia and 620 miles (1,000km) west of the archipelago’s capital, Honiara.

Two aircraft managed to reach the island yesterday, but were unable to land because there is no airstrip.

Geoff Mackley, a New Zealander on the first flight who specialises in filming natural disasters, said: “Every tree has been blown over or shredded. The island is denuded of vegetation and almost every building has been damaged. The sea has come through some villages, burying them.

“It’s too early to say exactly how many casualties there might be, but it looks very grim. In a cyclone that strong, I would expect to see a lot of people dead.”

Tikopia appears to have been hit when the cylone was at its peak, with winds of between 180mph and 210mph.

Another populated island, Anuta, was also battered by Zoe, one of the fiercest Pacific cyclones on record.

But reports from a second aircraft, an Australian Air Force Hercules, which flew over the islands at the request of the Solomon Islands Government, indicated that the devastation may not have been as bad as at first feared.

Bob Davis, Australia’s High Commissioner in Honiara, said that the islanders — many of whom live in houses built of leaves and branches — had advance warning that the cyclone was headed their way. “We have had some indications that they took shelter beforehand,” he said.

The AusAid group said that islanders in the region, which is prone to cyclones, had built traditional cyclone shelters. Alan March, an AusAid spokesman, said that officials had reported seeing damage to housing, crops and gardens, but also saw islanders tending gardens and fishing.

Mr March said: “With the caveat that this was viewed from 1,650ft (500 metres), there is evidence of people getting on with their lives and no evidence of injuries.”

He said that some islanders had waved at the aircraft as it flew past — “but there was no sign of a request for help”.

Emergency shelter, food and medical supplies have yet to leave for the islands because of an argument with the crew of a Solomon Islands state patrol boat over unpaid wages.

The Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office was arranging to charter a commercial vessel to leave Honiara for the two or three-day journey to the islands tomorrow.

Mr March said: “It is a very remote island group and the Solomon Islands Government is reacting as best as it can to these challenges.”

The islands need supplies of water, shelter, food and clothing. The cyclone destroyed the only fresh water source, filling it with sea water and debris.

The Solomon Islands consist of about 80 equatorial land masses. Tikopia, Anuta and Fataka are in the Santa Cruz group of the archipelago, which lies east of Papua New Guinea.

Tikopia has a long history of dealing with cyclones. In 1992 Cyclone Tia destroyed most of the island’s housing and food crops. A storm in 1956 killed 200 people. The estimate of the number of people on Tikopia and Anuta has been increased from 1,000, the number taken from a census several years ago, to about 2,000.

Tikopia is about six square miles (16sq km) in size and has around 20 villages. Ethnically Polynesian, the inhabitants are linguistically related to Samoans and live on a diet of local fruits, vegetables and root crops, as well as lagoon fish — it is often too dangerous to go into the open ocean to fish. They do not hunt and there are no animals on the island.

The issue of sending help has been clouded by four years of ethnic conflict among islanders, which have left the central Government bankrupt. Dozens of people have been killed and foreign investors have abandoned the islands.

The Australian Government said that it spends more than £12 million on aid to the Solomon Islands each year. Alexander Downer, the Australian Foreign Minister, pledged to send as much additional aid, in the form of medical assistance and emergency communications, as possible.

Cyclone Zoe has weakened since it hit the chain of islands last weekend and is not expected to cause further damage.

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