Death toll seven

Press, 4 March 1983, Page 1

Death toll seven

NZPA Suva Hurricane Oscar claimed two more lives yesterday to take the death toll to seven. In Nausori, 14 miles from Suva, a man, aged 21, was killed as he tried to rescue the family chickens.

He did not notice that a fallen electrical wire was touching the chicken coop and died instantly when he touched the coop. In Sigatoka, a man whose arm had been severed by a piece of roofing iron died yesterday before he could get medical treatment.

A piece of flying roofing iron flung by high winds at the height of the hurricane on Saturday struck him, severing the arm. Medical aid was delayed by winds and flooding. A man and his teen-age niece, reported missing in floodwaters on Wednesday, were found dead in Nandi yesterday. As the weather cleared yesterday and communications were restored, reports came in of the extensive destruction throughout Viti Levu and the islands of the south.

Hurricane Oscar cut a swathe through the western island groups of Manauca and Yasawas, through the south-west of Viti Levu, near Vatulele and Beqa Island. In its trail it left scenes of devastation and sorrow that one district officer said was “such havoc that it cannot be described.”

The main village of Vatulele. Yakubu, was “completely devastated." according to reports from the radio-telephone operator on the island. He said that the villagers were sheltering in a school after most of the houses had been destroyed and the roof of the church caved in.

Damage to Fiji's fledgeling pine industry has been extensive. with many trees broken or uprooted. The losses to Fiji’s main foreign export, sugar cane, were still being assessed by the Fiji Sugar Corporation, but many hectares of cane have been flattened and this year’s production is likely to be very hard hit. . Among hotels and tourist resorts, the top-class Hyatt Regency and the Naviti’resort were extensively damaged. Treasure and Beachcomber Islands were evacuated on Wednesday, and Plantation Village, another island resort, was to have been evacuated yesterday. The Hideaway resort in Sigatoka was also extensively damaged when trees crashed on its reception area.

Hurricane Oscar was reported at midday-yesterday, to be heading south, away from the Fiji group. Its last reported position was 100 miles south-west of ino-I-Lau, Fiji’s southern island. A . Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion will leave for Fiji today to assist in assessing damage caused by Hurricane Oscar. The Orion will make a reconnaisance flight over the Lomai Viti and Lau groups to the south on the way to Nandi, and later make sweeps over the tourist areas to the north-west of the main island, Viti Levu.