Transcript
Whole villages were wiped out on Koro Island. Children died in the storm surge and 788 homes were blown away. About 3,000 people were left without homes and most of them are still living in tents. Elazar Duaibe works for Oxfam and says they have been able to build plenty of toilets, with the ratio of people to toilet now just 10 to one. But he says people are worried about when they'll get new homes.
"Right now they're still living in tents, makeshift houses, in some cases they just grab hold of whatever, tin they can see and they just build temporary shelters just while they wait for the government help."
He says people are going to the forest to collect fallen wood to build temporary shelters.
"In the meantime, the villagers, they are already cutting timbers from the forest, the fallen trees, so they are extracting that and they are storing it, until the other materials arrive from the government and they distribute this timber amongst the villages."
The Fiji government launched the Help for Homes initiative and lowered its usually high import tariffs so foreign companies could send timber as quickly as possible. But some New Zealand companies say initially there wasn't a long enough low-tariff window, and issuing import licences is a slow process. The Sales Manager of Max Birt Sawmills, Shannon Birt, says they are doing their best to prioritise urgent demands from Fiji, but the government there could be more flexible to help with planning.
"Even our own log forecasting, it needs extensive planning, and we are operating three to four months in advance of trying to predict what the market needs. It would help the forward planning and it would help us look at longer term supply options."
But others say there's just not enough wood. The Wood Products Manager from Topex Exports, Joe McLeod, says he usually sends up to 2,000 cubic metres of timber a year to Fiji, but that order has doubled since Cyclone Winston. He says Fiji has extended the lower tariff period until the end of the year, and he's happy with the way import licences are issued, but the local construction boom means there's just not enough supply.
"The reality is there's only so much timber produced within a given time frame. As much as possible is going into Fiji at present, any more and you start having other logistical problems, like vessel space and that's been a problem that we've all experienced."
Joe McLeod says Fiji's aims to rebuild before the end of the year may have been too ambitious. Elazar Duaibe says despite the delay, the government has managed to distribute fairly the materials that are arriving and it's collaborating well with aid groups that are still working throughout the country.
