A category 1 tropical cyclone Cody struck Fiji on Sunday. One person has died, there is widespread infrastructural damage, especially on the main island of Viti Levu, and about 2,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and seek shelter at 110 evacuation centers across Fiji.
Continuous rain and flooding has sustained heavy infrastructural damage, and power blackouts in some parts of the country.
Of those evacuees, The Fiji Times is reporting, 200 include “climate change refugees in Dreketi who were relocated more than a year ago” in the wake of cyclone Ana last year. The 200 villagers were relocated last from Navabatu last January after the storm’s impact sustained cracks in infrastructure.
With parts of the country still inaccessible, shops closed, schools closed and refashioned as shelters, the financial costs of the damage are not yet known. The Covid-19 pandemic sustains further complications to the government, economic recovery dependent on tourism, Fijians and displaced populations.
Small island states have already reported their economies are in a “freefall” from the twin ravages of the pandemic and the climate crisis, a reality mirrored in multiple displacements for some frontline communities as well.
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