Houses on Vanuatu's Pentecost Island have been destroyed in Tropical Cyclone Lola and roads blocked by fallen trees, a resident says.

Temae Baeri, who lives on south Pentecost, described the damage as more serious than the destruction left by Tropical Cyclone Harold in 2020.

He says a landslide on a new tarsealed road is making it hard to travel between north, central and south Pentecost.

The cyclone has been downgraded to a category 1 storm in the latest weather information from the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geo-hazards Department.

Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office is expected to deploy staff  to the provinces hard hit by the storm.

Staff will assess the damage and find out what people on the ground need urgently.

RNZ Pacific correspondent Hilaire Bule says due to the destruction of the telecommunications network, it's hard for the NDMO to collect damage reports on affected islands.

Government chief information officer Gerard Metsan says the government's telecommunication networks in the northern part of Vanuatu are down.

Vodafone and Digicel are trying to restore their networks.

The management of Vodafone says they are negotiating to fly in a helicopter on Thursday to carry out an aerial assessment of damage to their network.

-RNZ.