Two dead as cyclone levels Fiji villages

SUVA, Fiji: Super cyclone Yasa flattened entire villages as it tore through Fiji, aid agencies said on Friday, with a baby among two confirmed deaths and rescue workers racing to the worst-hit communities.

Yasa made landfall late on Thursday as a top-of-the-scale Category Five cyclone, lashing Fiji’s second-largest island, Vanua Levu. Climate change has made cyclones stronger and more frequent, with Yasa the third maximum-strength storm to batter the Pacific island nation in five years.

It triggered floods, landslides and blackouts before moving out to sea early on Friday, where it rapidly weakened to a Category Three system. Zalim Hussein of Savusavu, a small town of a few thousand people on Vanua Levu, said he feared for his life sheltering at home in the dark as screeching winds ripped apart houses around him.