Fiji toll rises to 16; airport still closed

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33058, 27 October 1972, Page 14

Fiji toll rises to 16; airport still closed

(New Zealand Preet Aeeociation)

WELLINGTON, October 26.

Fiji’s international airport at Nandi will not reopen for regular commercial passenger flights until Saturday morning.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport said today that a crucial locator or homer at Nandi was damaged and could not be repaired until late tomorrow at the earliest.

Until it is repaired, international jets will not be cleared to land at the airport. Civil Aviation is responsible for communications at Nandi. TOLL RISES The Fiji death toll from hurricane Bebe is now 16, and another three persons are missing believed drowned, according to the Fijian Government public relations office. There is no official estimate of damage yet but the Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) said that at a conservative estimate the disaster might cost the country s2m. The South Pacific Sugar Mills building in Lautoka, the country’s main sugar export port, has suffered at least $lOO,OOO damage.

A tourist hotel in Lautoka, Fiji’s second town on the north-west coast which bore the main impact of the hurricane, has damage exceeding $25,000. Lautoka Hospital was almost without a roof. MANY HOMELESS

Widespread damage is reported to coastal Fijian native villages. Most are built of palm tree logs with thatched roofs.

Government officials say three thousand people are homeless and are being accommodated in refugee centres at churches, community halls and schools. At Ba, 100 miles north-west of Suva, the number of people in refugee camps rose from 800 to 4000 today.

The district officer at Tavua, 30 miles from Suva, said that up to 70 per cent of Fijian villages in the interior had been destroyed.

Equipment for the damaged locator will be flown from New Zealand to Nandi tomorrow morning on a Civil Aviation aircraft, which will also carry equipment to repair other communications and landing aids at Nandi damaged or knocked out by the hurricane. New Zealand technicians will also repair Nandi’s visual landing aid. The spokesman said the hurricane had caused “thousands of dollars worth of damage” to airport communications and landing aids.

“Some of the equipment just disappeared,” he said. “It will be Thursday of next week at least before everything is repaired, calibrated.

checked, and back to normal.”

Nausori Airport, at Suva, on the other side of Viti Levu Island, was under 3ft of water yesterday and is still out of action. The airport is the responsibility of the Fiji Government but New Zealand will offer help and advice if required. The Royal New Zealand Air Force is airlifting 500 tents to Fiji. Three Bristol Freighters, flying from Whenuapai tomorrow with 150 tents, expect to reach Nandi early tomorrow night. A Hercules transport aircraft, due back at Ohakea from Singapore tomorrow, is expected to leave later in the day with the rest of the tents.

The Army is working through the night preparing the tents. Another Civil Aviation Fokker, which flew to Nandi yesterday, left for hurricane-ravaged Funa Futi in the Ellice Islands group today. Aboard were two radio technicians and a meteorological technician and their equipment. The men will restore radio and airport communications which were wiped out by the hurricane two days before it struck Fiji. A Fijian radio technician employed on the island was killed by the hurricane and a meteorological technician injured.

Qantas will send a special flight to Fiji to pick up stranded tourists. About 600 travellers have been caught by the closing of Nandi Airport. About 200 are bound for Sydney.