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Fiji

Fiji: Floods Situation Report No. 4

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Situation Overview:

Flood waters have receded in all previously affected areas and the majority of evacuees have returned to their homes. The most recent NDMO figures list 945 evacuees remaining in 20 centres in the Western Division, 379 evacuees in 7 centres in Central Division, and all evacuation centres being closed in Northern Division (total 1,324). The death toll remains at 11, and one person is still missing.

Whilst more rain is predicted for the next two days no recurrence of flooding is anticipated in the short term.

The relief effort is shifting in emphasis from emergency response to recovery with nutrition, water and sanitation, health and education being the main areas of focus.

Key issues needing to be addressed during recovery include: the destruction of root crops in many areas and a shortage of seedling stock for replanting, damaged water and sewerage infrastructure in Ba and Sigatoka, as well as damage to water and sewerage infrastructure on a village level, disease risk relating to large amounts of surface water remaining and difficulty in maintaining hygiene, damage to school learning materials and the challenge affected families face in financing the return of their children to school.

The total value of damage to water, sewerage, road, health and electrical infrastructure is now estimated to be $FJ 54.9 million. Estimated damage to agriculture, including damage to access roads, may add up to FJD 60 million.

Health, Water & Sanitation

The Ministry of Health Disaster Management Committee (MOH DISMAC) and (international) partners are coordinating health efforts including compilation of needs for health related items/intervention. Access to safe water remains to be a major issue mainly due to damage to water and sanitation facilities/infrastructure. Since many of evacuation centres have been closed and evacuees have been returning to their villages, cleaning of housing and surroundings is another focus.

Fiji Red Cross Society has distributed rubber gloves and masks to the soldiers who clear mud and debris. In addition, they distribute hygiene packs to the most affected households, which include antibacterial soap, towels and awareness raising leaflet as well as special packs of cleaning materials such as disinfectant and washing powder.

WHO, UNICEF and MoH produced instructional flyers to go with water purification tablets of different sizes. UNICEF provided water purification tablets, bars of protex soap, water containers and ORS to DISMAC while NZAID and JICA also provided 7,800 10 and 20 litre water tanks, in addition to 33 large 10,000 litre tanks from government and NZAID and 15 1,500 litre bladders provided by UNICEF. Health awareness raising campaign through media such as newspaper and radio are also going on. MOH with support from UNICEF has received 163,000 water purification tablets for distribution.

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