Fijian disaster described by relief workers

Press, 17 April 1979, Page 2

Fijian disaster described by relief workers

PA Wellington Many of the Fijian islands which ’were hit by the cyclone that killed more than 70 persons and devastated homes three weeks ago will be unable to produce copra this year, according to a New ' Zealand Red Cross helper who has just returned from Fiji. Miss Moya McTamney, a co-ordinator of international Red Cross assistance to Fiji, said in Wellington yesterday that the Fijians would have to plant new palm trees. “The coconut destruction was such as I’ve never seen before,” she said. In Auckland, the Air Force officer in charge of relief work in Fiji said that he was staggered by the destruction the storm had caused. “The force of the winds must have been unbelievable,” said Wing Commander Robin Klitscher. “It. ripped out whole areas of pampas grass and stripped 1

great areas of virgin jungle clean of all leaves —only the stumps remained,” he said. Wing Commander Klitscher, the officer in command of No. 3 Helicopter Squadron at Helensville, returned home at the week-end after 12 days of dawn-to-dusk flying on the worst hit island of Kandavu. He said that, it would be many months before life returned to normal for the residents of the 76 villages on Kandavu. Their food crops had been obliterated, and after medical aid the top priority was to fly in rice supplies. Many of the villages had been flattened.

Wing Commander Klitscher said that most of the injuries appeared to have been caused by flying roofing iron, and by coconuts torn from trees. Two R.N.Z.A.F. Iroquois crews distributed 120,000 kg of relief supplies, including 450 tents, among the villages.