Residents of Fiji have started cleaning up and assessing the
damage after the most powerful cyclone to hit the Pacific nation tore
through its islands and killed at least five people.
Officials on Sunday said they were trying to establish communications
and road access to the hardest-hit areas, and would not know the full
extent of the damage and injuries until then.A 30-day state of natural disaster was declared on Sunday, a curfew was extended and police were empowered to make arrests without a warrant.
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Fiji hit by strongest storm recorded there
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Al Jazeera's senior meteorologist Richard Angwin said around 6.30GMT on Sunday that Winston was headed away from land.
"Its forecast track cannot be relied on 100 percent, but it should keep away from land from now on," Angwin said.
Deaths 'could increase'
An elderly man in the village of Nabasovi on Koro Island was killed after the roof of the house he was in collapsed.
The Red Cross said there were unconfirmed reports of three
more fatalities, while the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation put the death
toll so far at five.
In another village on Koro Island, 50 homes were reportedly destroyed.
Many, however, fear that casualty numbers will increase once
reports come in from outlying islands and from so-called "squatter
areas" where shanty-standard housing was unlikely to have withstood the
category 5 storm.
Alice Clements from UNICEF Pacific was in the capital Suva when the cyclone hit.
"We certainly felt the impact of...Winston in Suva with
destructive, howling winds and the sound of rivets lifting from roofs a
constant throughout the night," she said.
"It is likely that smaller villages across Fiji will have suffered
the most, given their infrastructures would be too weak to withstand the
power of a category 5 cyclone."
Power, water and communication services are yet to be restored across this nation of almost 900,000.
Near total devastation
Winston made landfall around 7pm (local time) on Saturday near Rakiraki on the north coast of Fiji's main island.
In the nearby district of Ba, local businessman Jay Dayal
said for three hours Winston pounded the area with very heavy winds and
constant, torrential rain.
After inspecting the district today he described scenes of near total devastation.
"We haven't seen so much damage in any of the past cyclones,
not in my lifetime," he told Reuters via telephone. "The three and a
half hours of wind that we had, it just literally destroyed buildings.
"Looking at all of the smaller houses and the squatter areas, they are almost flat," he said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if people are now starting to go
without food. It looks like a different country, it doesn't look like
Fiji," he said.
He said relief efforts were being hampered by trees and
power lines blocking roads and by a power failures but that the police
and the army were doing a good job in the initial phase of the clean-up.
The government also declared a 30-day state of natural
disaster, giving extra powers to police to arrest people without a
warrant in the interest of public safety.
As a nation, we are facing an ordeal of the most grievous
kind," Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama wrote on social media. "We must
stick together as a people and look after each other.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had an emergency response team on
standby, but that Bainimarama had not yet asked for help.
The airlines Virgin and Jetstar on Saturday suspended
flights into and out of Fiji's international airport, while the national
carrier suspended all flights.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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