Two people killed in Fiji floods, tourists evacuated

Two people are dead and tourists have had to be rescued as heavy flooding continues to hammer Fiji’s tourist belt.

Two people are dead and tourists have had to be rescued as heavy flooding continues to hammer Fiji’s tourist belt.

The main airport city of Nadi is under water and while Lautoka, Ba and Rakiraki are suffering damage with a persistent tropical depression.

Fiji’s National Weather Forecasting Centre this morning cancelled the severe wind warning but has predicted several more days of heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Farmers in two separate incidents have been killed by raging rivers.

State owned Fiji Broadcasting reports that a group of tourists were rescued in Nadi last evening after rapidly rising flood waters trapped them

It said the military managed to get to the group and get them out to the nearby Nadi international airport.

International flights are continuing, but the Air Pacific flight to Auckland today is running over an hour behind as passengers struggled to get to the airport.

Concern is growing around Denarau, a tourist complex built on an artificial set of islands near the mouth of the flooding Nadi River.

The broadcaster says travel in the west has become increasingly difficult.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated in villages and towns in the west.

Fast rising rivers on the Coral Coast through to Sigatoka are also beginning to cause damage.

A spokeswoman for the military regime, Sharon Smith-Johns, last night warned Fiji to “take precautions and listen to news for updates there are concerns that the weather will worsen in the next 12 hours.”

An Auckland based at Namaka, near Nadi, emailed Stuff saying that they had been hit by a “most almighty down poor.”

The man, who only wanted to be identified as Matt, said Nadi is under about half a metre of water.

“The turn off to Denarau (the Denarau Roundabout) was completely submerged,” he reported.

“There were a few cars abandoned so I did not proceed any further as the water was flowing pretty quickly.

“I spoke to a local standing under a bus shelter and he advised me the river that runs alongside Nadi is very high.”

He said they had received plenty of warnings about the flooding.

“A lot of companies here started letting people go home before lunchtime today in case there were any issues for them getting home.”

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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