[Breaking news update, posted at 6:26 a.m. ET]
Five people were killed in Fiji when Tropical Cyclone Winston struck the island nation, the International Federation of the Red Cross said Sunday. The storm was the most powerful on record in the Southern Hemisphere.
[Previous story, posted at 5:01 a.m. ET]
(CNN) — Fiji will close all its schools for one week after a record-breaking storm struck the island nation, the country’s Ministry of Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management said.
Authorities believe the brunt of Tropical Cyclone Winston, which struck Saturday night, has passed. Now comes the arduous task of assessing and cleaning up the damage inflicted by the storm.
At least one person was killed when the most powerful storm on record in the Southern Hemisphere struck Fiji, said Sune Gudnitz, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Regional Office for the Pacific.
Winds that reached 296 kilometers per hour (184 mph) lashed the tiny island nation in the Pacific, felling trees, knocking out power and causing heavy flooding, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported.
“Winston was a monster of a cyclone,” Fiji resident Nazeem Kasim told CNN. “I have not experienced anything like this before in my life, nor has my 60-year-old father.”
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama declared a state of emergency that will be in effect for 30 days, according to the Fiji Times.
A nationwide curfew remains in effect as emergency crews clear roads of downed trees and restore power. The curfew is expected to be lifted at 5:30 a.m. Monday local time. All civil servants were expected to return to work after the curfew is lifted.
Nadi International Airport will open for passenger processing Monday morning.
Breaking records
The storm wreaked havoc on the tourist hot spot and could still end up hitting the South Pacific nation even more over the coming days.
CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said Winston is expected to “keep strength as it continues on its path in open waters,” but said “it will weaken Tuesday or Wednesday once it hits cooler waters and stronger shear.”
Winston’s 184-mph winds smashed the previous record for a Southern Hemisphere cyclone. According to Colorado State University hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach, both Cyclone Zoe, which battered the Solomon Islands in 2002, and Cyclone Monica, which walloped Australia in 2006, previously shared the record with their estimated winds of 178 mph.
Had it occurred in the Atlantic, Winston would have been a Category 5 hurricane, but because of hemispheric nomenclature, it’s dubbed a cyclone. (In the Northwest Pacific, it would be a typhoon; all three are the same weather phenomenon.)
Concerns for smaller villages
So far, the government has reported only one fatality — in Nabasovi, on Koro Island.
“It is likely that smaller villages across Fiji will have suffered the most, given their infrastructures would be too weak to withstand the power of a category 5 cyclone,” said Suva resident Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for UNICEF in the Pacific.
“Families may have lost their homes and crops, therefore leaving them without shelter, food and a livelihood.”
Although not hit directly, the capital Suva endured damaging gale-force winds, heavy rain and power outages. Clements, who was in Suva when the storm struck, said the city experienced “destructive, howling winds, and the sound of rivets lifting from roofs a constant throughout the night.”
More than 1,200 people were in evacuation centers around the country, the disaster management ministry said.
The Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva suffered extensive water damage, and the roof of a local hospital was blown off in the northwestern town of Ba, Gudnitz said.
Widespread flash flooding and coastal inundation — flooding in normally dry land — “is likely as storm surges may push the sea inland several hundred meters,” the Red Cross said.
The western city of Nadi, on Fiji’s main island, suffered minor wind damage but experienced extensive flooding,CNN affiliate TVNZ reported.
“This is a mountainous nation, and that means any heavy rainfall will filter down to the lower elevations — meaning landslides, mudslides and flooding,” CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam said.
Fiji, an archipelago collectively about the size of New Jersey, lies in the South Pacific Ocean some 1,800 miles from Australia’s east coast. (By comparison, Hawaii is about 2,500 miles from Los Angeles.)
Most of the nation’s 900,000 residents live on one of two main islands: Viti Levu or Vanua Levu.
