'Dust is yet to settle': Cyclone Yasa leaves trail of destruction

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'Dust is yet to settle': Cyclone Yasa leaves trail of destruction

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Suva: A powerful cyclone pounded Fiji, killing two people, including a three-month-old baby, and leaving a trail of destruction across the Pacific Island nation, authorities said on Friday.

Cyclone Yasa, a top category-five storm, made landfall over Bua province on the northern island of Vanua Levu on Thursday evening, bringing torrential rain, widespread flooding and winds of up to 285 km per hour across the archipelago.

While it proved terrifying for those in its path, there was a sense of relief in other parts of the country that the devastation wasn’t as widespread as many had initially feared.

Scores of houses were destroyed, while power was cut to some areas and roads blocked by fallen trees and flash flooding, authorities said.

Homes and schools in Fiji have been damaged by tropical cyclone Yasa.

Homes and schools in Fiji have been damaged by tropical cyclone Yasa.Credit: UNICEF

“We will continue to assess the scale of damage in the coming days,” she said. “But we are likely looking at hundreds of millions of dollars, said Vasiti Soko, the director of the National Disaster Management Office.

FBC News reported one of those who died was 46-year-old farmer Ramesh Chand, who was sheltering in his home in Lovelove, outside Labasa, on the island of Vanua Levu when part of his house fell on him, also injuring his eldest son.

The man’s wife, who wasn’t named, told FBC she grabbed her younger son and ran to a nearby home to seek help: “We called my husband. Wake up! Wake up! But he didn’t wake up.”

The storm destroyed many other homes on the island, which is Fiji’s second largest.

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Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama confirmed the two deaths in a video posted in Facebook.

“The dust has yet to settle, but we are likely looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in damages,” he said.

The eye of the storm moved through Vanua Levu from about 6pm on Thursday. It missed the capital city Suva and the major tourist hub of Nadi on Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu.

Authorities are still assessing the damage from tropical cyclone Yasa.

Authorities are still assessing the damage from tropical cyclone Yasa.Credit: KKU The Fijian Artist/Twitter

“It’s a nightmare,” Labasa resident Banuve Lasaqa Lusi told Radio New Zealand. “The thunderous sound of the wind and what is flying around is what’s frightening.”

Cyclone Yasa over Fiji.

Cyclone Yasa over Fiji.Credit: NASA

She said many people’s houses had been flattened, with some sheltering under their beds or escaping with just the clothes on their backs.

“Villages in Vanua Levu have lost a lot of houses. The wind has flattened many community buildings and crops have been flattened,” Fiji Red Cross Society director-general Ilisapeci Rokotunidau told Reuters.

Authorities said the cyclone was weakening on Friday as it moved south-east over some of Fiji’s outer islands.

Josefa Lalabalavu, Pacific disaster risk management coordinator for Plan International Australia, who is based in Suva said the capital had been spared the brunt of the impact.

“However, many other locations were less fortunate.

“In rural areas like the province of Bua [...] people from at least one community evacuation centre had to find shelter elsewhere as the centre was no longer safe.

“Another community spent the night sheltering in nearby caves. There is widespread damage and inundation.“

She said there were fears now for the welfare of people living in smaller more exposed islands in the Eastern group.

Fiji Meteorological Service said Yasa had “rapidly weakened” into a category-four system at 6am local time, and was then downgraded to a category-three system at 9am.

However, they warned of danger from flooding. Fiji’s government said that the Rewa River was rising, with rain continuing intermittently. The Rewa skirts Suva and runs through Nausori, where Suva’s airport is located.

Many had worried the storm could rival the destruction caused by Cyclone Winston, which killed 44 people and caused widespread damage when it hit in 2016.

The Fiji Times newspaper reported the cyclone had destroyed about 20 homes and a community hall in the village of Tiliva and that homes in other villages had also been damaged or destroyed.

The storm prompted more than 20,000 people to move into government evacuation centres. It also downed power lines, cut communications, and caused flash flooding and road closures.

Before the cyclone hit, authorities had imposed an overnight curfew throughout the nation and declared a state of natural disaster.

Located about one-third of the way from New Zealand to Hawaii, Fiji has a population of about 930,000. The Prime Minister had estimated 95 per cent of them would be in the cyclone’s path.

John Feakes, the Australia’s High Commissioner to the nation, posted on Twitter that Australia “stands ready to provide immediate #TCYasa support to @FijianGovt in whatever way we can.”

New Zealand’s High Commissioner Jonathan Curr said his government would be helping: “We will be supporting @FijianGovt relief efforts to affected communities ASAP.”

Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach stated that Cyclone Yasa is the most powerful storm to form in the 2020-2021 tropical season so far.

Bainimarama, has been a forceful advocate for taking action to reduce the severity of climate change, given his country’s vulnerability to sea level rise and extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones. “On this same day in 2012, Fiji was enduring cyclone Evan,” Bainimarama said on his Facebook page.

“Since then, we’ve been battered by 12 more cyclones - two of which (Winston and Yasa) are now jockeying for our hemisphere’s strongest-ever storm in history,” he said.

“This is not normal,” he stated. “This is a climate emergency.“

Reuters, AP, Washington Post, reporters

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