At least eight people have been killed after one of the most powerful cyclones to hit the Pacific Ocean tore through the islands of Vanuatu early Saturday, multiple news outlets reported.

Packing winds up to 270 kilometers (168 miles) per hour, Cyclone Pam blew down or destroyed homes and cut off power, water, and communication lines, especially on the archipelagos outer islands, The Associated Press reported.

As of Saturday, eight have been reported dead, but aid workers have said it could take weeks before the storms impact is fully evaluated.

"It felt like the world was going to end," Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Childrens Fund, told Reuters from Vanuatu. It's like a bomb has gone off in the center of the town.

Scientists have said its nearly impossible to attribute any single weather event to climate change, according to The Associated Press. Still, the Category 5 cyclone the worst to hit the archipelago since Cyclone Uma left 5,000 people homeless and one man dead in 1987 has once more raised concerns about the readiness of Pacific island nations to respond to severe weather events exacerbated by rising temperatures and sea levels.

The Pacific region has been one of the areas most affected by changes in global temperatures in recent years. In 2013, countries in the Pacific Basin recorded the highest increases in sea levels in the world, according to a report by The Christian Science Monitor, based on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Last September, the president of the Marshall Islands, a tiny archipelago near the equator, called on world leaders to act on climate change as the countrys atolls become increasingly unlivable due to rising seas, severe floods, sudden storms, and droughts, The Guardian reported.

The Pacific is fighting for its survival, President Christopher Loek said. Climate change has already arrived."

Countries in and around the Pacific, including China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia, have also experienced the most tropical cyclone strikes since 1970, the same Monitor report found.

Of the five typhoons to affect the most number of people in the Philippines, four occurred within the last 10 years, according to Philippine news outlet Rappler. The worst was also the most recent: Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the archipelago in late 2013, affected more than 16 million people, including 6,000 dead. The estimated cost of damage was about $2 billion, Rappler reported.

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Cyclone Pam and climate change: Are Pacific Islands ready?