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Ferocious cyclone lashes Fiji, leaves 6 dead

A curfew has been extended through Sunday and police empowered to make arrests without a warrant.

By :  sadhguru jaggi vasudev
Update: 2016-02-21 07:52 GMT
A tree lays across a road and power lines in Lami, Fiji.
Authorities were urging people to remain indoors as they cleared fallen trees and power lines. They said all schools would be closed for a week to allow time for the cleanup. The government declared a 30-day state of natural disaster, giving extra powers to police to arrest people without a warrant.
About 80 percent of the nation's 900,000 people were without regular power, although about one-third of them were able to get some power from generators, he said. Landlines throughout Fiji were down, but most mobile networks were working.
\"Truth be told, we've gotten off pretty lightly here in the capital,\" said Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for UNICEF. \"It was still a pretty awful night. You could hear crashing trees and power lines, and popping rivets as roofs got lifted and ripped out.\"
Cyclone Winston hit Fiji on Saturday and moved westward overnight along the northern coast of Viti Levu. Fiji's capital, Suva, located in the southern part of the island, was not directly in the cyclone's path and avoided the worst of its destructive power.
Officials were trying to establish communications and road access to the hardest-hit areas, and wouldn't know the full extent of the damage and injuries until then.
George Dregaso from Fiji's National Disaster Management Office said two people on Ovalau Island died when the house they were sheltering in collapsed on them, and another man was killed on Koro Island, although it wasn't clear how. Police are investigating reports of two more deaths on the main island of Viti Levu, Dregaso said.
A curfew was extended through Sunday and police empowered to make arrests without a warrant to ensure order. The government was responding quickly by clearing vital roads and the main airport reopened Sunday.
Officials in Fiji scrambled to assess damage Sunday in the wake of a ferocious cyclone that tore through the Pacific island chain, leaving at least three dead and collapsing hundreds of homes as people were sheltering from winds of up to 285 kilometers (177 miles) per hour.
A curfew has been extended through Sunday and police empowered to make arrests without a warrant.

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