TWELVE people are confirmed dead and seven people remain lost at sea in the Western Division, Commissioner Western Manasa Tagicakibau announced yesterday.
He predicted the number of casualties would increase as assessment teams began making contact with communities in remote and inaccessible areas.
He said the 12 confirmed deaths had been recorded in the West during Severe TC Winston.
The Category 5 storm plummeted through northern Viti Levu on Saturday night, flattening hundreds of homes and sending thousands of people homeless. Sugarcane farms across the region suffered severe damage. Food plantations were also decimated. Trees were uprooted and power poles and lines became a tangled mess that obstructed roads and hampered assessment and relief efforts.
Power has been restored to Sigatoka and essential services in Nadi and Lautoka but there is no indication of when full supply will be made available.
Mr Tagicakibau urged members of the Emergency Operations Centre West to collect data on homes destroyed or partially destroyed as soon as possible so that assistance could be rolled out as soon as possible.
However, another urgent need, food, could take up to six months to completely normalise.
“It (deaths and missing persons) might increase as we conduct further assessments because we haven’t really had all the information with regards to injuries,” Mr Tagicakibau explained.
Apart from the outer islands, the emergency operations team is also working round-the-clock to communicate with their counterparts in Rakiraki.
“We have been trying to reach Rakiraki throughout the week, prior to Severe TC Winston making landfall, in the height of Severe TC Winston and in the aftermath.
“There seems to be a blackout in the area. We don’t know the extent of the damage as yet but we are working on other issues like being able to get an airlift into Rakiraki.”
He said teams were on standby to journey into Ra and the outer islands to conduct first-hand assessments.
Mr Tagicakibau said it was important that people living in vulnerable areas remained vigilant because of the extent of damage caused by Severe TC Winston.
“We do not know how safe buildings are or how safe some areas are, especially those prone to landslides. It is very unfortunate that the family members of these victims were forced to bury their loved ones quickly because they were cut off from services.”
Power outages and limited mobility forced family members to bury the dead within hours of Winston’s passing.
Ten of the 12 officially dead as released by the Western Division Emergency Operations Centre are Taniela Voreqe, 48, who died after the home he was sheltering in collapsed at Vanuakula in Ra, Titilia Mua, 33, from Matainananu in Rakiraki who was killed by a falling tree and the two people who drowned in Nayavutoka Village, Ra — Keresi Tupou, 98, and Pauliasi Naiova, 32.
Also dead is Josefa Tumura, 12, of Naserelagi, Ra; Titilia Drekedreke, 46, of Naibita; and Mereoni Nariga, 24, of Dreketi Village who all died after being hit by flying debris.
Among those deceased is 76-year-old Gangama, who died after the house she was sheltering in collapsed.
In Ba, Osea Sivo died as a result of blood loss from a wound he suffered during the storm.
Meanwhile, in Lautoka, a 54-year-old inmate at the Natabua Corrections Centre died after the roof of a building in the compound collapsed.
