INTERNATIONAL assistance will be needed to get the economy back to normal when the 30-day emergency declaration period comes to end.

National Disaster Management Office director Akapusi Tuifagalele said the assistance could be either technical or financial for rehabilitation and recovery purposes, particularly in rebuilding damaged homes.

“We are hoping that our partners and donors from outside will continue in the days to come that they will provide assistance during this period they can help us in terms of financial, technical support and donation in kind to assist our communities especially those affected,” Mr Tuifagalele said.

“There are two phases to this operation — one is the emergency and relief that we are going through, the other one is after 30 days where we will go through our rehab and recovery — that is also where some or bulk of the assistance technical and also financial will be needed to get back the economy to normal.”

Mr Tuifagalele said rebuilding homes would take more than two to three years.

Making a comparison with TC Evan in 2012, he said, the extensive damage by Severe TC Winston would mean more rehabilitation work.

“Similar to what happened in 2012, we covered rehabilitation in dwelling houses, if I read correctly there were more than 1500 houses repaired and constructed — the figures could double or triple,” he said.

Meanwhile, statistics released by NDMO on Monday, 10 days after TC Winston revealed that 3360 houses were completely destroyed around the country with 5846 partly damaged.

Yesterday, Mualevu District on Vanuabalavu reported 188 dwellings destroyed and 80 partly damaged.