SAMOA – Assessment teams are out in Samoa checking on the damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Amos overnight.
The Samoa meteorology service says the impact of Tropical Cyclone Amos was not as powerful as earlier feared.
But strong winds and heavy rains associated with the system had brought down trees and powerlines, caused flooding, and washed away some roads across the islands.
Red Cross aid worker Clare Shave has been out with the Red Cross assessment crew in Samoa and people were working to repair the damage.
“So far what we’ve seen is some damage to plantations, breadfruit and bananas, potholes in roads, some electricity wires are down and some trees have fallen across roads.”
But she said powerlines were being repaired and people had already been out with chainsaws.
Ms Shave said some homes were still sitting in pools of water but the water hadn’t made it inside.
She said in the capital, Apia, it was business as usual and people were moving around.
In Savai’i, some families were evacuated overnight due to flooding.
Richard Su of the Red Cross in Samoa said the four families evacuated lived along the main river there.
“About 60 people were evacuated to a safer location due to flooding.”
Mr Su said in Saipipi Village, the road was badly damaged there and couldn’t be accessed at all.
The road in Lano Village in Savai’i was also inaccessible as most of the road has been washed away.
At 7am yesterday, Tropical Cyclone Amos was about 240 kilometres east of Apia, and 130km east-northeast of Pago Pago, American Samoa.
The cyclone was moving east-southeast at 30 km an hour and was weakening slowly.
Forecasters expected sustained winds of 148km an hour close to the centre easing to 130km an hour in the next 12 hours.
On its current track, the cyclone was expected to move southeast over the next 12 to 24 hours then slow down and track more southwards for the following 24 hours while slowly weakening.
