Huge waves batter Fiji

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 6

Huge waves batter Fiji

NZPA-Reuter Suva Waves up to nine metres high have battered the coast of Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu, damaging tourist hotels and villages. The Coral Reef and Tubakula resort hotels suffered damage as the waves crashed ashore and flung tables and chairs through windows.

At least 16 homes in three coastal villages were knocked down by the pounding waves.

Mr Robert Kennedy, of the Sandy Point cottage resort at Korotogo, said: “I have never seen anything like it. It was incredible . . . phenomenal.”

He said the waves had deestroyed 30 metres of seawall on his property and had run inland up to a ground height of 15 metres. The manager of the Reef hotel, Mr Richard Blundell, said about $5OOO worth of damage had been done there as windows had been smashed and four guest rooms flooded. At the Tubakula beach resort the manager, Mr Isoa Yabaki, said the waves had overturned furniture, smashed windows, and left sand up to 15cm thick. Korotogo residents said they thought the waves had been caused by an earthquake as they were much too big to be lokas, or seasonal storm-generated waves for which that section of coast is notorious.

But the Deputy Director of Mineral Resources (Mr Howard Plummer) said in Suva that local seismographs had shown no trace of anv earthquake that could have generated such waves. “It is highly unlikely that they were seismic, or tsunami-type waves,” he said.