“But in Suva, the sun is out again, the water is going down and the evacuees are returning,” she said.
Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama pointed to climate change as a cause of recent deadly storms.
“Today, my priority is on Fijians’ safety — but the rest of the world needs to wake up and reckon with why this is happening,” Bainimarama wrote on Twitter.
Fiji was still recovering from an even more powerful cyclone that hit in December. That storm, Cyclone Yasa, killed four people, with a fifth person listed as missing.
But while people remained displaced Monday, the country was also trying to quickly get back to normal. Schools remained closed but other civil servants were told they should report back for work unless they’d been directly affected by the cyclone. That move angered some people
Soon after Cyclone Ana made landfall, wind gusts were hitting 140 km/h, according to the Fiji Meteorological Service. During Cyclone Yasa, which destroyed dozens of homes, winds topped 320 km/h.
Located about one-third of the way from New Zealand to Hawaii, Fiji has a population of about 930,000.
AP
