UNITED NATIONS, March 16-- Humanitarian assistance to Vanuatu has begun with UN agencies stepping up their response after the country was hit by Cyclone Pam, a UN spokesman said here on Monday.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that a UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team arrived in Vanuatu' capital Port Vila today, to support government in coordination, information management and assessment efforts, said Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, at a daily news briefing here.

"Humanitarian assistance has begun in areas that partners have been able to reach," he said. "UNICEF (the UN Children's Fund) is for example on the ground providing clean water and sanitation support, and household items are being provided to families in need."

Tropical Cyclone Pam hit Port Vila on the evening of March 13, killing at least 24 people and leaving 90 percent of structures on the most populous island damaged or destroyed, according to the government.

Other countries in the region are also affected, such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. Given the widespread extent of the geographic area affected by the cyclone, it is expected that the response operation will be logistically challenging.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in the Western Pacific Region is coordinating response to the devastation with Vanuatu's Ministry of Health and other humanitarian organizations to bring much-needed health support to the Pacific nation.

WHO is sending health and emergency response experts with supplies to Vanuatu and communicating closely with the governments of Australia and New Zealand, the UNICEF and other organizations to ensure Vanuatu gets the right resources to meet their health needs.

In a message, the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Martin Sajdik, said that cyclone Pam is an urgent reminder that disaster risk reduction must be part of national, regional and global development strategies, Haq said.

"He added that Vanuatu is now facing a major humanitarian emergency and that there was no time to lose to take action," Haq said, noting that while addressing the immediate crisis, the international community must begin to think of medium and long- term actions to support Vanuatu's recovery.