IMODE News

December 15, 2009 – 4:23PM (source: AP)

Three people are dead after a tropical cyclone battered Fiji, causing flooding, damaging homes and power lines, and forcing thousands of villagers to flee to shelters.

Cyclone Mick, Fiji’s first cyclone this summer season, ripped through the most populated island of Viti Levu on Monday night and is headed toward Tonga, which has been placed on alert.

Fiji’s National Disaster Management Office said the death and injury toll was reduced by people from the South Pacific nation heeding the cyclone warning and flocking to emergency shelters ahead of the storm.

“People took evasive action … took the warning seriously and moved to shelters because their homes were not strong enough and also because they feared the flood waters,” the agency’s principal officer, Patiliai Dobui, told Associated Press.

Some 3000 people had sought shelter ahead of the damaging winds and torrential rains, but by late today most had returned to their homes, he said.

Fiji’s Meteorological Service said winds gusting up to 150 kilometres an hour were recorded close to the Category 2 cyclone’s epicentre, with winds averaging 90 to 110 kilometres an hour.

Category 1 is the lowest cyclone rating, Category 5 the highest.

Mick was a “very vicious” cyclone with damaging gale force winds that struck up to six hours earlier than expected, said Tim Sutton, of the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), who is based in Suva.

“There’s a lot of damage. Lots of trees down, power lines down everywhere, all the roads around Viti Levu are still closed with flooding and landslides,” he told New Zealand’s National Radio.

On the west coast of Viti Levu, two people were swept away in the Sigatoka River, while a student from Drala village in the Nadarivatu highlands died instantly when a tree fell on him.

Tourists on the Yasawa and Mamanuca islands northwest of Viti Levu were reported safe, but Octopus Resort was forced to close because of damage.

Dobui said the disaster management office had still not heard from some small outer islands after contact was lost during the storm. Fiji is an archipelago of more than 320 islands.

AP

Report Pacific Beat:
There are claims Fiji’s only remaining economic income, in the wake of the 2006 military coup, is from its struggling tourism industry.

The claim was made in a paper presented by the Lowy Institute, which has released its 2009 Pacific Islands Update report.

Just last month, the Governor of Fiji’s Reserve Bank claimed the global financial crisis has had a bigger impact on Fiji’s economy than any political developments.

Sada Reddy claimed the impact of the annulment of Fiji’s constitution and strict media censorship, had only a very minor impact on the local economy.

But Professor Ron Duncan of The Australian National University, the author of the Fiji Economic Performance and Investment report for the Lowy Institute, said the economy is in a terrible state

Prof Duncan said Fiji’s sugar and garment industries are both doing poorly right now.

“I think employment is down to around 4,000 or less in the garment industry,” he said.

“Exports are down because of the global economic crisis. Then there’s mineral water which was the main sales to the US, and of course that market’s in a bad way for many of these kinds of exports.” (20/10abc)