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SUVA: Super cyclone Yasa ripped through entire villages as it ripped through Fiji, aid agencies said on Friday (December 18), with a baby between the two confirmed deaths and rescuers rushing to the worst affected communities.
Yasa made landfall in the Pacific island nation on Thursday night as a top-tier category five cyclone, hitting Fiji’s second-largest island, Vanua Levu.
The storm triggered flooding, landslides and power outages before heading out to sea early Friday, where it quickly weakened to a category three system.
Zalim Hussein from Savusavu, a small town of a few thousand people in Vanua Levu, said he feared for his life by taking refuge in his home in the dark as screeching winds tore apart the houses around him.
“I could hear the roofs of neighboring houses flying, trees falling and branches breaking outside and big waves crashing on the shore,” he told AFP.
“We were all afraid for our lives and I thought at some point we would lose our home. In my 65 years, I have never seen anything like it.
Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said two deaths had been confirmed, a 45-year-old man and a three-month-old baby.
“Sadly, we expect deaths to increase,” he said.
Most of the houses in rural Fiji are made of wood and corrugated iron sheets, and are not made to withstand winds like those unleashed by Yasa, which were forecast to bring gusts of up to 345 km / h.
“There are quite a few villages that report that all the houses have been destroyed,” the head of Save the Children in Fiji, Shairana Ali, told AFP.
“Most of these people depend on agriculture for their livelihood and their crops have also been destroyed.”
A Fijian family takes refuge in a temporary shelter during super cyclone Yasa in the capital city of Suva on December 17, 2020 (Photo: AFP / Leon Lord)
“CLIMATE EMERGENCY”
The Red Cross said it was battling response teams amid “extensive destruction” in the Bua region of Vanua Levu and coastal communities flooded by storm surge.
Aid agencies had already placed supplies across the country in anticipation of major disasters during the cyclone season, which runs through May.
Bainimarama said there were some 24,000 refugees in nearly 500 evacuation centers across the country.
Authorities had issued dire warnings about the danger posed by the cyclone for most of the week, urging people to find sturdy structures or flee to higher ground if they live on the coast.
A state of natural disaster was declared on Thursday, giving emergency services broad powers to impose curfews and movement restrictions for the next 30 days.
Yasa is the third category five storm to hit Fiji since 2016, when Cyclone Winston killed 44 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
The most recent was Cyclone Harold, which claimed 31 lives as it passed through the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga in April this year.
“It is devastating to see another major cyclone hit Fiji so soon after Cyclone Harold and so close to Christmas,” said Kathryn Clarkson, Pacific Director for the Suva-based Red Cross.
“With communities already facing challenges due to Covid-19, this will only add to the difficulties.”
A Fijian boy carries a bag to a temporary shelter to avoid damaging strong winds from super cyclone Yasa in the capital city of Suva on December 17, 2020 (Photo: AFP / Leon Lord).
Yasa’s human cost could have been worse had it not landed in the sparsely populated province of Bau, without causing major damage to large cities, except for the flooding at Rakiraki on the main island of Viti Levu.
However, Save the Children’s Ali said the full picture of the storm’s impact has yet to emerge in isolated rural communities and remote islands.
Bainimarama, a longtime advocate for climate action, blamed global warming for creating the recent monster storms, which were once rare but have become relatively common.
“This is not normal. This is a weather emergency,” he tweeted.
