In Lautoka, destruction and resolve after Winston

Transcript

The recovery effort in Fiji's Western Division is getting into full swing as the country still tries to work out the damage caused by cyclone Winston.

The category five storm struck the north of Fiji's main island Viti Levu on Saturday night, destroying homes, wiping out crops, and leaving many homeless.

Communication has still not been made with the country's eastern islands, and the Yasawa group, to the west of Viti Levu.

RNZ International's Alex Perrottet is in Lautoka, and told Jamie Tahana the destruction is immense.

ALEX PERROTTET: We've been working our way up the west coast of the island and we've only got really 30 minutes north of Nadi, that's Lautoka, the second biggest city of Fiji.  We know it's not the worst affected area but even here we've seen houses completely flattened.  I'm standing next to a house where everything bar the little toilet block which has got concrete floors, that's visible, although one wall was knocked down so there's this exposed toilet.  The rest of the house you can see how fresh the wood is and the glass louvres, it was built very very recently.  It might have been the best house in this little settlement, this little settlement north of Lautoka.  And everything is just strewn across the ground, all the family's belongings are out drying on top, all the furniture, not that there's that much of it, but the place is a mess.  This is the Lovu settlement, the pastor there was explaining to me earlier on, how family's were out standing without any shelter at all in their pajamas the day after the cyclone because there was just constant rain that followed for about 12 hours.  And really the little that you have with all your belongings wet, certainly sounded like a very depressing situation indeed.  

JAMIE TAHANA: So you're in Lautoka, and this destruction you've just described is a common sight?

AP: That's right, there are houses with no roofs.  I spoke to another family the roof was blown away, the little girl was explaining how the guava tree fell and basically had a big dent into the laundry and the roof flew away.  As we drove up the road trees are cut in half, some power lines are down on the road.  The Fiji electricity authority had some workers there trying to restore power, but people here believe it's really going to be another month before they get power.  But more urgent than that is clean water, they have to walk 15-20 minutes to go and shower and get some clean drinking water, they can't really clean their clothes and the other things that they have.  But they're waiting for those water trucks to come and deliver water, it's a particularly hot day today.  And so it's good for drying, but some of those real basic necessities are still lacking here and as I said it's not the worst of the places that we've been too.

JT: What response have you seen, how's the clean up going?

AP: People are cleaning up, we've seen men on top of their homes nailing back some corrugated iron roofing.  Certainly there's a resolve, people are used to this, although everyone we speak too does say that this is the biggest storm they've ever seen, the strongest cyclone.  But the resolve of the people, we know the Fijians are just so friendly, there's always a smile, there's a certain acceptance that this is a way of life for them.  And people are already back at work, the emergency crews are working as best they can.  Still though there's that lack of knowledge of what's happening in the outer islands.  The Yasawa island group to the west, no one's been able to contact them there.  We do have contacts there we're trying to get through too.  We do suspect that the damage there has been just as bad if not worse.