FIJI – Evacuation centres have reopened in Fiji after heavy rain and flooding since Sunday.

About 200 people were expected to shelter at Tavua District School in the northwest of the main island, Viti levu.

One of the school buildings still has a gaping hole in its roof after the category five Cyclone Winston tore through little more than a month ago.

The school is sheltering people from Nabuna village who have had to leave their flooded homes already damaged by Cyclone Winston, which hit six weeks ago.

The evacuation coordinator, Ratu Ovini Bokini, said people started rushing in on Monday.

“I think they’re going to be staying for another two days. It depends on how the weather goes. Everywhere gets flooded now. Even during Cyclone Winston I was here with them. They were here more than a week. People have started coming in. I’m expecting 200 to come in.”

There are also fears that the heavy rain and flooding in Fiji since Sunday will heighten the risk of disease in remote villages.

The Red Cross has been assessing sanitation and water supplies in villages inland from Rakiraki which were hard hit by Cyclone Winston.

Red Cross water, sanitation and hygiene specialist Ana Zarkovic said many village toilets and water systems were ruined by Winston, forcing people to to go the toilet in the open, which in turn polluted the rivers and streams.

She said things were slowly being restored reducing health risks, but she fears the heavy rain has now set some remote communities back.

“Following the rains in the last two days, there’s a chance that the water supply has been damaged through the silt and the rocks and there’s a risk the communities may be back to using the secondary water sources which is a bit worrying.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports an estimated 250,000 people need help with water, sanitation and hygiene after Winston.

Sugar cane growers in the northwest of Fiji’s main island Viti Levu are calling for urgent assistance after the latest heavy rain and flooding.

Much of the crop in the area from Ba to Rakiraki was wiped out after Cyclone Winston and farmers say they have seen little assistance so far to help with replanting.

A farmers’ representative in Tavua, Chandrika Prasad, said many farmers are surviving only with help from overseas family and friends.

He predicts up to 70 per cent of the 7000 growers in his area will walk away from sugar.

“First it was dry weather, two years, nothing. And then hurricane and then this one – rain. If you go to a farmer’s house they’ve got no roof. Everybody’s suffering.”

Prasad said if farmers do stay in the industry it will take them at least ten years to recover from the recent weather patterns.

Forecasters in Fiji say there could be extensive flooding, with heavy rain likely to persist for the next couple of days.

A tropical disturbance is moving to the south of the country at about 12 kilometres an hour, and has brought heavy rain and flooding to communities hard-hit by Cyclone Winston little more than a month ago.

The acting director of the Fiji Meteorological Service, Misaeli Funaki, said there was already flooding in the western and northern divisions, but that was expected to get worse as water moved down from the hills and met an incoming high tide.

Funaki said the heavy rain was not expected to end soon: “The whole system is anchored over Fiji, and this is going to be the case for the next – even into tomorrow and into the day after. The trough will remain slow moving over us and that will be dumping in more rain as we look ahead.”

Funaki said another tropical disturbance to the west also has the potential to develop into a weak tropical cyclone as it moved towards Fiji.

Ana Zarkavic, a water and sanitation specialist for the Red Cross, said she was very concerned about remote inland communities, which were still waiting for help and advice on all important sanitation issues.

Heavy rain had cut off access to hundreds of households that still needed help.

Aid authorities said about a quarter of a million people in Fiji still needed help with water, sanitation and hygiene across the country.

They said open defecation had the potential to exacerbate disease outbreaks, including typhoid.

- RNZI