16 Apr 2003

New Zealand Pacific community sends more aid to Fiji town

10:25 am on 16 April 2003

New Zealand's Pacific community is to send another two containers of supplies for the Fiji victims of Cyclone Ami.

Five containers packed with canned food, clothing, bedding, stationery, kitchen materials and water tanks, collected from Fijian New Zealanders, and other Pacific communities, have already arrived.

The cyclone in January battered Vanua Levu, claiming a dozen lives, and destroying around three thousand houses and wrecking much of the island's infrastructure.

The New Zealand Aid Minister Marian Hobbes who has just visited Labasa says she found it heartening that New Zealand families were so ready to help their neighbours in the Pacific.

The New Zealand Government announced earlier this week it was giving Fiji an additional 220 thousand US dollars in aid, much of it to help re-establish schools affected by the storm.