Cyclone Keni drenches Fiji’s west

FIJI – Fiji’s meteorological service says Cyclone Keni was a category two storm but expected to intensify further as it moves closest to Fiji at around midday yesterday.

Approaching from the west of Nadi moving east south east at 20kph the storm was expected to pass within 170 kilometres of the already saturated western town.

A number of flights scheduled to arrive and depart at the Nadi International Airport have been cancelled.

Damaging gale force gust warnings were in place especially for Viti Levu, the Kadavu group and Southern Lau group.

The Met Service Director, Ravindra Kumar, said last night that the impact would be dramatic with about 150 millimetres of rain expected over a 24 hour period and flooding.

The cyclone rolled into Fiji on the tail of a week of torrential rain and the devastating impact of Cyclone Josie the previous weekend.

A local charity helping flood-struck families in Fiji says there’s a lot of fear as the second cyclone in a matter of days approaches the country.

Sashi Kiran, of the organisation FRIEND, said homes standing on saturated ground in the country’s west and north are at risk with more rain and wind expected.

“They have seen their houses go, they have seen their whole cars go, they have seen their entire furniture go into a river. And then after that they’ve had to live in very wet clothes and in muddy conditions for days.”

Kiran said people had been struggling with lack of drinking water and food.

Sugar cane farmers are bracing for the cyclone amid concerns production has already been chopped by a third.

The General Secretary of the Cane Growers Association in Rakiraki, Pushp Dass said farmers were drastically affected by floods over Easter.

He said much of the nearly mature cane either fell down or was totally uprooted and the crop could be down by about 35 percent.

“They can’t do anything at the moment because of waterlogged farms because the rain has hardly stopped since Easter weekend. Mentally they are very disturbed but we can’t do much about it.”

Meanwhile Tonga disaster officials have called for people to be on alert with Keni posing a threat for the south of Tonga by Wednesday.

The Tongan Meteorological Service has warned that Ha’apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua could expect damaging winds by mid-week.

- PNC