Tropical cyclone claimed 27 lives in the Solomon islands last week, swept Vanuatu on Tuesday and is now moving over Fiji.
A violent tropical stillehavscyklon is pulled over against Fiji on Wednesday after having left large traces of death and destruction in the Solomon islands and Vanuatu.
The tropical storm, named Harold, has been weakened in the stormskalaen from five to four on the way to Fiji. But the blows with the winds of up to 240 kilometres an hour on the stillehavsøen, report meteorologists.
the Scale – Saffir-Simpson-scale – for measuring the strength of a tropical hurricane goes from 0 to 5, where category 5 is the most serious.
In spite of downgrades to report the official weather NaDraki, to residents in The southern part of the main island of Viti Levu to seek shelter in churches and schools.
– Its intensity makes it able to destroy property, infrastructure and in the worst case, personal injury or loss of life, warns the weather service.
Residents in the Fijian capital, Suva, says that the capital is already experiencing strong winds and sharp rain. It is not expected that the storm will peak later on Wednesday.
Harold has at least claimed 27 lives in the Solomon islands last week, and on Tuesday it drew from Vanuatu, where it devastated much of the country’s second largest city, Luganville.
Nødhjælpsorganisationen Red Cross’ secretary general in Vanuatu, Jacqueline de Gaillande says that the scale of the devastation is still unknown.
It is because the communication is still down in the northern provinces, which were hardest hit.
– NDMO (the national katastrofestyringskontor) conducted some luftundersøgelser, but they came back late last night, and we don’t know what they showed, she says to AFP on the night of Wednesday local time.
It is far from the first time that Pacific islands are being hit by severe cyclones. A massive international aid effort was launched in 2015, after a storm in category five laid the whole of the Vanuatu capital, Port Vila, down.
Vanuatu’s international borders are currently closed down as a result of the global outbreak of the coronavirus. There are no confirmed cases of the virus, while in Fiji is 15 confirmed smittetilfælde.
As a result of the cyclone has the Government lifted the ban on domestic flights in order to bring relief to the hard hit areas.
/ritzau/AFP
