Fiji News Still Scarce

Some places there were kicked pretty hard:

SUVA, Fiji — A powerful cyclone destroyed more than half the houses in many villages in northern Fiji, but only one death has been reported, officials said Thursday.

The full extent of the damage from Cyclone Tomas has yet to be determined because communications to the hardest-hit areas remain cut off and may not be restored before the weekend.

...A nationwide curfew was lifted Wednesday, but a state of emergency will remain in effect for 30 days in the country's northern and eastern divisions, where aid agencies say up to 130,000 people were affected by the storm.

"It is evident that wherever Tomas has struck, the damage has been overwhelming," Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Fiji's prime minister and military chief, said Wednesday as the first reports began to roll in.

The storm, packing winds of up to 130 miles (205 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 175 mph (280 kph), first hit Fiji late Friday. It blasted through the northern Lau and Lomaiviti island groups and the northern coast of the second biggest island, Vanua Levu, before losing strength as it moved out to sea Wednesday, the nation's weather office said.

"One village on the island of Taveuni lost all its houses, but there was no loss of life," Disaster Management Office senior official Pajiliai Dobui told The Associated Press.

While Fiji's north suffered overwhelming damage from the powerful winds and sea surges, Dobui said preparations for the storm meant "peoples' lives were not put at risk." Only one death was reported.

Dobui said some villages in the Lau island group lost up to 60 percent of their houses, especially near the coast where powerful waves surged inland.

"The impact of the storm surges was quite devastating," made worse by high tides at the time the storm passed over the islands, he said.

On the northern island of Koro, seven of the 14 villages were badly damaged, said Julian Hennings, a spokesman for the island's Dere Bay Resort.

...Tiny Cikobia Island, home to about 400 people, suffered more than three days of hammering from the cyclone, which smashed houses, uprooted trees, washed away all local boats, and scattered debris across the island.

But Dobui said "many very strong homes" built on Cikobia after earlier cyclones "withstood Cyclone Tomas and protected the lives of our villagers."