Government approves $500,000 for cyclone battered Tokelau

The Government has approved a $500,000 contribution to buy relief supplies for Tokelau in the wake of Cyclone Percy, which battered the tiny Pacific island group at the weekend.

Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry spokesman Jonathan Schwass said the supplies would be shipped from Apia, in Samoa, as soon as the purchase and shipment could be arranged -- which was likely to be this weekend.

The supplies had to be shipped because Tokelau has no airport.

A spokesman for Associate Foreign Affairs Minister Marian Hobbs said the $500,000 would also help provide food, tarpaulins, medical supplies, drinking water, power generators and fuel.

The tropical cyclone struck Tokelau at the weekend, and is now battering the northern Cook Islands.

On Tokelau's Fakaofo atoll, a man was seriously injured when cut by flying debris, two people had to be rescued after being washed out to sea and seven houses were washed way, Tokelau Telecommunications general manager Tino Vitale told the Australian-Pacific Centre for Emergency and Disaster Information.

Fakaofo does not have a doctor.

New Zealand's administrator for Tokelau, Neil Walter, said Percy had now passed through Tokelau.

"For three or four hours you had about a metre of sea water swirling back and forth between the ocean on the one hand and the lagoon on the other," Mr Walter said from Nukunonu, Tokelau's most populated atoll.

"There's damage to the infrastructure -- a lot of areas have been gouged out, the roads have broken up.

"The power system is down, a lot of damage to buildings, a lot of equipment lost, boats scattered all over the island along with debris and building materials and so on," he told National Radio.

Mr Walter said Nukunonu was only 50-300m wide and 5m above sea level at its highest level.

Mr Walter, who is based in Wellington and was only on the atoll by coincidence, was now carrying out preliminary damage assessment.

Cyclone Percy is one of four tropical cyclones in the Pacific this month to cause damage, following Meena, Nancy and Olaf.

Tokelau, population about 1400, is a self-administering territory of New Zealand. Its three main atolls of Nukunonu, Atafu and Fakaofo have a total land mass of just 10sqkm.

About halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, Tokelau has no airport and is reached by boat from Samoa.

The Cyclone Percy warning for the northern Cook Islands is for winds gusting to 60 knots, flooding and high seas.

Samoa is not expected to feel the worst of Cyclone Percy but a heavy rain warning is in place there.

- NZPA