NIUE (16 Jan 2004) -- CYCLONE Heta has left the tiny South-Pacific Island of Niue so devastated that its population of 1500 may have to pack up and move to New Zealand. Australian High Commissioner in Wellington, Allan Hawk, who flew to the island on a New Zealand Air Force Hercules on Tuesday to inspect the damage, said that the island had been ravaged, leaving the islanders with a stark choice. "A number of Niueans have already packed up and left and there's a question mark over whether it will have critical mass to continue as a self-governing territory," he said of the 230sqkm nation 3000km northwest of Brisbane. New Zealand already has a large expatriate population of about 20,000 Niueans, and another 2000 live in Australia. "The island and especially the main village of Alofa took the full brunt of the cyclone," Mr Hawke said. "They've seen cyclones before but lots of people were shellshocked by the ferocity of this one," he said. "The hospital's gone, the hotel's gone, the public service infrastructure is gone and the parliament building may not even be salvageable and many of the private sector businesses have been devastated," he said. | | He said the coral reefs, which provided a tourism livelihood, had also been destroyed and would take years to recover. Cyclone Heta was described as the "worst in living memory" by locals after it ripped through the island on January 7, flattening everything in its path, destroying buildings and cutting electricity and communications links. Mr Hawke said the international aid effort led by Australia and New Zealand had ensured there was an operating field hospital on the island. The islanders also had enough food and water and up to 200 people who lost their houses were being accommodated with relatives. Only one person was killed in the cyclone but a number of injured people, including 19-month-old toddler Daniel Alec, were evacuated to a hospital in Auckland. Mr Hawke said Daniel was still in hospital in Auckland in a critical condition. "It was very lucky there weren't more people killed," he said. SOURCE - The Australian |
