30 Mar 2012

Airport, schools closed after flooding in Fiji's western division

3:17 pm on 30 March 2012

The Disaster Management Office in Fiji says water levels from the flooding which hit the Western Division overnight could be as high as those from the floods which caused extensive damaged in January.

The Fiji Disaster Management Office Acting director, Pajiliai Dobui, says all the schools in the district have been closed for the day and all domestic and international flights in and out of Nadi have been suspended.

Twenty houses in Korovuto are several feet under water and about 60 people have been evacuated.

Mr Dobui says there are pockets of flooding around the whole western division from Rakiraki to Sigatoka and says it's likely that response teams will find other communities which need to be evacuated.

"So far what we have received from our teams that are monitoring the water levels as well as the amount of rain, that this one is likely to be higher. If there were other areas that were not flooded in January have already been flooded now so we are expecting something more and we hope that it's not worse than that."

The Fiji Disaster Management Office Acting director Pajiliai Dobui.