Food shortage for Lau Group
ISLANDS in the Lau Group face critical food shortages in the wake of Cyclone Raja, the Minister for Home Affairs, Akariva Nabati said in The Fiji Times of Friday, January 2, 1987.
A preliminary survey revealed that major parts of the group suffered losses to crops and livestock. Damages in Lau are almost five times more the losses in the Northern Division, which preliminary surveys put at $1.8 million.
Mr Nabati emphasised that the figures were provisional and losses could run higher.
An important feature of the aftermath of Cyclone Raja was that homes did not suffer extensive damage, with most of them left standing.
Mr Nabati said this could be because they were homes built in the place of old ones which were ravaged by previous cyclones.
Mr Nabati said the crop losses were higher and this would greatly affect the islanders because they relied on food crops.
“Unlike people elsewhere, island people live on root crops and rely on crops for income,” Mr Nabati told The Fiji Times.
“They do not rely on wage or money from sugarcane.”
Mr Nabati said the Government had put in an application for aid from the United Nations Development Programme under an emergency aid scheme.
A NZ aircraft has been engaged to carry out aerial surveys of the cyclonehit areas.
New Zealand’s Minister for Transport, Richard Pebble, was on board the aircraft, with acting NZ High Commissioner and Fiji Government officials.
Mr Pebble said the damage was not so great as feared but ground surveys by Fiji Government officials would indicate the precise extent.
Meanwhile, EMSEC officials checked out a report that a halfsubmerged ferry boat was near Nairai Island.
Mr Pebble said they also spotted an inflatable life raft on the shore of a nearby island, but there was no evident sign of any threat to life.
Meanwhile, in Suva, Mr Nabati disclosed the provisional estimates of damage.
He said damage to infrastructure, homes, crops and livestock amounted to $13.2 million.