Story highlights Official announces five more deaths, bringing confirmed toll to 11 Vanuatu's President tells CNN the cyclone has set his nation back by years Aid agencies say they fear severe destruction in communities on outlying islands

A wall of water and mud surged through Sam Upan's house, toppling the walls of the neighboring church where he serves as a deacon.

It was midnight on Friday, and he had no choice but to wade out into the gale force wind and darkness.

"The water was up to my waist!" he says.

Upan eventually made it to higher ground, taking shelter on a parked van. Fortunately, he had sent his family away before the storm to a shelter in the center of the capital, Port Vila.

But on Monday, three days after the storm struck, Upan and his daughters sit in the debris strewn rubble of their home. On Sunday, he built a temporary shack for them to sleep under. A bundle of bananas donated by a friend lies nearby in the mud.

It's the only food the family has to eat.

Nearby, Upan's daughter Elsie slowly scrubs mud out of a shirt. Other families all across this tropical town are facing similar difficulties in the aftermath of the storm.

To many Westerners, Vanuatu is a holiday destination boasting crystal blue waters and luxury yachts. But it's also one of the poorest nations in the Pacific, and many of its 260,000 inhabitants live in flimsy houses built of thatch or metal sheets.

Those vulnerable homes were dealt a fearsome blow over the weekend by Cyclone Pam, one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall.

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Islands struggle after cyclone