FIJI HURRICANE DAMAGE

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26648, 6 February 1952, Page 7

FIJI HURRICANE DAMAGE

Flood And Landslide In Interior (Rec. 11 p.m.) , SUVA, Feb. 5. The first report from the Nartwsi district in the high mountain country of the interior of Viti Levu says that all three Fijian villages were swept away by a flood after the hurricane bfi January 28 had caused thd damming of the Navua river by landslides. The dam burst before midday and the villagers barely had time to escape. All food crops were destroyed by landslides. Absolutely nothing was left of the villages ' and 220 refugees camped at a Roman Catholic missipn nearby where the sisters treated minor injuries. There were no deaths. After an inspection, the District Officer sent food, gardening tools, knives, five tents, and clothing. More food will be sent within a week. Mr C. Elliot, manager in Fiji for the Colonial Sugar Company, said today that the Penang mill was not as badly damaged as reported earlier. The building was unroofed, but the machinery was not wrecked and the damage was repairable. The Acting-Governor of Fiji (Mr A. F. R. Stoddart). Will fly to the devastated northern YasaWas ih a New Zealand Air Force Catalina to-morrow. To-day Mr Stoddart informally toured some of the hurricane-swept district* of northern Viti Levu. The "Fiji Times and Herald,’’ in Its first issue since the hurricane, Says there is no question that the Worst sufferers are the Fijian village communities in tiie northern Yasawas and in northern and estern Viti L6Vu. It says it refuses to accept official or any other assurances that urgent relief measures for these sufferers ate not

necessary. It discounts the attitude apparently taken up in some quarters that the Fijians can be left to rehabilitate themselves their villages, crops, churches, and schools without adequate outside help, and that the bur* den of providing emergency food supplies until the destroyed food gardens are again productive can be “shuffled entirely on to the Fijians of the un* damaged provinces.”