Recent Flooding and Current Cyclone Watch!

By the time we had left the Fijian National Archives on Friday afternoon, the rains had started! Thankfully, Suva has a pretty solid drainage system and haven't had too many problems. However, other cities weren't so lucky. If you have a second, please check out Fiji Ministry of Information's photos as they have done a great job of capturing the current severity of the recent flooding in fiji: Fiji Ministry of Information

There were some really devastating photos, and the rumors are that around 80,000 people have been separated from their homes in one way or another (mind you, Fiji's population only totals 800,000!). People are working hard to reconstruct the bridges that have collapsed, especially on the main highway connecting Suva to Nadi. There are already several relief organizations in place helping people salvage what they can from their homes and providing volunteers to clean up the areas where the flooding has occurred.

Courtesy of Image South Pacific

The floods from the first rains calmed down yesterday (Sunday), but Cyclone Daphne has decided to grace us with her presence. We are now currently under "cyclone watch"; everyone is awaiting where and when this massive storm will hit. Class are cancelled for tomorrow, thank goodness I got my midterms finished today! Power continues to go on and off, the longest we've had it off has only been around 7 hours. 

While there are currently bigger problems (i.e. people's homes...), a lot of us international students are awaiting the status of our flights and spring break plans. I have booked my flight from Nadi to Sydney for Friday and was looking forward to beginning my Australian adventure later this week. Hopefully the roads will be manageable again; domestic flights are iffy but most all international flights out and into Fiji have been postponed as of now. Hopefully Daphne won't hit to hard and we can keep continuing to clean up the entire western and southern coastline of Viti Levu!

If anyone is interested, other reliable news source include: The Fiji Times and Fiji Village. Please keep all those in Fiji in your thoughts and prayers at this time!