Vanua balavu – The commander of the Fiji aid mission to the battered Lau island group in the country’s east says he is amazed that the death toll is not higher from Cyclone Winston.

The category five storm tore through the Lau group early in the morning on Saturday before last, at 22 kilometres per hour.

Commander Humphrey Tawake said it’s the first time in living memory that such a strong cyclone hit at the same time as minor earthquakes, sea surges and tidal waves.

He left the command post at Vanua Balavu island on Wednesday, saying he was shocked at the damage Cyclone Winston wreaked on the island.

“One thing that we must be thankful of is those that lost their lives was not as much as we would have expected with the level of devastation that is here.”

Commander Tawake said the people on the most devastated islands will need months to psychologically recover and begin their lives again.

HMNZS Canterbury has arrived in Suva with 293 people, three helicopters and hundreds of tonnes of aid.

Part of the mission will be to reinforce efforts of HMNZS Wellington, which is currently in the remote eastern Lau island group.

The head of the army contingent on Vanua Balavu island, Lieutenant Leroy Judge, said they had been using a desalination machine to produce tonnes of drinking water and delivering it to some of the worst hit islands.

“The plan is to get the Canterbury here with a lot more humanitarian aid and disaster relief stores, in the vicinity of this island.

Lt Judge said his advance group had also been working on bringing power back to the Lomaloma hospital and school, which service the whole island of about 3000 people.

Damage assessors in Fiji say around half of the country’s houses will have to be rebuilt following Cyclone Winston.

Teams of builders and engineers say they will submit reports saying many ruined houses were simply not built to standard.

Cost cutting measures and short cuts such as incorrect strapping and flimsy foundations contributed to the extent of damage.

They will recommend the government call for tenders from private companies who can bear the burden of compliance and build stronger structures.

Suggestions that Fijians return to traditional bures with sustainable and safer materials for when a cyclone strikes have been called unrealistic.

Savenaca Volau – an elderly man from Vanua Balavu, who crawled with his wife under the floorboards after half his house was ripped away by the storm and the furniture was blown out – has argued that Fijians would be better off building traditional bures, made from coconut palms and bamboo, as most people died from corrugated iron and glass cuts or crushed concrete blocks.

Engineers and assessors on board the the Fiji government ship MV Cagivou said they had seen multiple building errors in the ruined houses they had inspected in the Lau group.

Incorrect strapping methods and cost-cutting short cuts in the foundations were evident in the islands, far away from from the scope of government regulators.

A chief, Titoka Nakavulevu, saw the whole experience as having served as a lesson.

“It really teaches us to safe, to build a proper house preparing for the hurricane, for the long term, for our families.”

But everyone in the islands agreed with Commander Tawake that this cyclone was “unprecedented”.

“You have storm surge, you had the cyclone and the wind, then you have tornadoes,” Tawake said.

“Prior to that, for a couple of days we were having tremors, earthquake tremors, and it was like they were swimming in a swimming pool with tornadoes flying, roofing irons flying everywhere.”

He said that at least 50 percent of Fiji had to be rebuilt, house by house, and that was going to take some time to finish.

Whole villages in some parts are now preparing to live in temporary tents for up to two years until their new houses are built.

- PNC sources