Winston takes heavy toll on Yasawas, but no loss of life
Cyclone Winston has taken a heavy toll on Fiji's Yasawa island group, but there has been no loss of life.
Transcript
The extent of destruction caused by cyclone Winston to Fiji's outer islands is beginning to emerge, four days after cyclone Winston hit the country.
The category five cyclone has killed at least 29 people and left thousands without homes, but that number is expected to rise as contact is made with the outer islands.
Our reporter, Alex Perrottet, was on one of the first flights to the Yasawa Group, to the west of the main island, Viti Levu, and says the destruction there is widespread.
But he says, fortunately, there seem to have been no loss of life.
ALEX PERROTTET: I got on a turtle airline flight this morning and they basically have only been taking some residents back from the Yasawa island group. The first boat went out there this morning, that was South Sea Cruises and Awesome Adventures. They go out with the Yasawa flyer. I saw that arrive once I was out there on the ground. From the air, there certainly was damage, flattened houses as we have seen in other aerial photos but thankfully no loss of life. We visited Vuaki village on Matacawalevu island. We heard that in Yaqeta there was a lot of damage but no loss of life. Likewise in Matacawalevu village and on other islands like Tavewa, again, lots of damage, resorts damaged, homes gone but very few injuries and everyone alive. There was a huge sigh of relief.
JAMIE TAHANA: Because there were grave fears held for the Yasawas weren't there? There hasn't really been much communication with them.
AP: That's right and even when I got to where the sea-plane takes off their radio contact, which usually is pretty handy, that had broken off as well. Hence the early reconnaissance flight. We were taking a lot of gear to the resorts as well. It was a very heavy plane but they wanted to get out there and speak to people because all communication had broken off. The scale of it, people are still taking it in. 12 homes in Vuaki village are flattened, 17 in total had their roofs ripped off, so that's 12 families that are homeless there. They have been taken in by relatives. There's eight homes that are gone in Yaqeta. They've said about 120 families and around about 90 homes, 77 have really bad damage, particularly to bathrooms, toilets, outer rooms to the houses. We are talking about a lot of damage in these islands. But again, no loss of life, but they were right in Winston's path as it went through. Many of them are saying how grateful they were that this cyclone was moving so fast. Basically there was a toilet room that had been blown off a house and a man standing next to it said if the cyclone had kept up for another half hour the house would have been gone too and I could see where the house was moving away from the concrete foundations.
JT: There was relief from your flight but I guess, with the scale of damage, a lot more is needed. Have they started to see that come in? What are the needs of the people in the Yasawas?
AP: Well apart from the shelter, they've got water, there has been a lot of rain today. There was rain yesterday. They've got tanks out. Many tanks are broken though, of particular concern are the tanks around the schools. School is suspended but a terrible sight was to see a full classroom from Nasomolevu Catholic school had basically flown 60 metres, you can see a video I put on twitter of that. You can see the remains of a classroom. They're talking about getting tanks replaced, they are damaged and leaking. They want shelter and of course they want food because the crops are gone. The cassava, the yams, the breadfruit trees are damaged. I sat with a man who had about four or five breadfruits around him and that was the last that he had of what his plantation could give him.
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