Parts of Fiji already suffering cyclone damage hit again

Transcript

Heavy rain and flooding has caused more devastation to parts of Fiji which are still in a  state of emergency after Cyclone Winston hit six weeks ago.

About a thousand people are in evacuation centres after the latest rain, with flood warnings for the entire country. 

Two separate and slow moving tropical depressions are to blame, with the worst still to come as they move closer to the country.

Sally Round reports from an evacuation centre in Fiji.

People are pouring into Tavua District School in the northwest of the main island Viti levu.

They've left sodden homes already damaged by Cyclone Winston, back in the evacuation centre again after a nation-wide flood and heavy rain alert.

One of the school buildings still has a gaping hole in its roof after Winston tore through.

The evacuation co-ordinator Ratu Ovini Bokini is again trying to bring some order to the chaos.

OVINI BOKINI: People started coming in, I am expecting about 200 people to come in.

SALLY ROUND: So have you got enough room. Have you got enough facilities?

OB: For the time being. People have been rushing to get a room, now I am trying to squeeze them in, like 6 people in room - 6 to 7 families.  

Up the road, aid worker Ana Zarkovic is unable to get to remote villages because of the flooding. 

She has been helping the Fiji Red Cross restore sanitation and hygiene to villages after the Cyclone.

Many village toilets and water systems were ruined by Winston, forcing people to go to the toilet in the open, which in turn polluted the rivers and streams.

Things were slowly being restored, she says, but she fears the heavy rain has now set some remote communities back.

ANA ZARKOVIC: Following the rains in the last two days there is a chance that their water supply has been damaged through the silt and the rocks and there is a risk that the communities may be back to using those secondary water sources which is a little bit worrying.

The rain has also flooded the area's sugar cane plantations already devastated by the cyclone.

A sugar cane farmer, Chandrika Prasad, says there's been little assistance from the authorities and many farmers are surviving only with help from overseas family and friends.

He predicts up to 70% of the 7000 growers in his area will walk away from sugar.

CHANDRIKA PRASAD: First it was dry weather, two years, nothing. Then hurricane and then this one, rain. If you go a farmer's house, they have got no roof. Everybody's suffering.

As the rain pours down in Tavua another sugar cane farmer and vegetable grower Umesh Prasad wonders how the thousands of households dependent on Fiji's sugar industry will cope.

He counts at least 20 people dependant on him including his own family, farm workers and their households. 

UMESH PRASAD: If I lost everything then where are these people to go? They will have nothing. At least I am feeding two of my labourers right now but how long will I be feeding them? Because I have lost everything.

CHANDRIKA PRASAD: This rain is worse than the hurricane. We have planted a lot of vegetables. All gone. And then whatever sugar cane we had, all washed away, all gone.

The cane farmers fear it will take at least ten years to recover and they're calling for immediate help after the latest devastation.