Aid is beginning to arrive in Vanuatu after the Pacific island nation was hit by a cyclone which President Baldwin Lonsdale described as a "monster".

Cyclone Pam badly damages up to 90 percent of houses in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila, Oxfam says.

Terming it a "calamity", Vanuatu's president calls for international help after Cyclone Pam ripped through the Pacific archipelago

The death toll from a category five tropical storm that has hit islands in the South Pacific could run into the dozens says UN relief agency