Near-Hurricane In

Fiji

Five missing; Four rescued

A STORM which approached hurricane force passed through the Fiji Group on the week-end of February 25-26.

Fijian houses were damaged, trees blown down and there was much flood ing of roads in Viti Levu and at Labasa.

Pour local ships got into trouble in bad seas—the cutters Anna Alice and Adi Gaetane were driven on the reef at Taveuni, the ketch Makogai went ashore on Makogai; and Tui Mauvaro spent some hours on a sand-bank in Vitogo Bay.

NOTHING had been heard (up till March 5), of five Banabans who, crossing from Niusawa, Taveuni to Rabi, in a 20 ft. open boat, with a small engine, were caught in the heavy storm.

A fishing party from Vatukoula, com prising Messrs. Michael Storck, E. Steele and V. Irvine, with a Fijian companion, were caught off Tavua.

The party’s 14 ft. launch was smashed on the Salisali Reef, and after nearly five hours spent clinging to wreckage in the water, the party struggled ashore in an exhausted state at Manave, an islet off Vatia Point.

Two of the three Europeans could not swim. Members of the party said later that but for the courage and endurance of the Fijian it is doubtful whether the two could have reached safety.

The launch sank at 4 a.m. on February 25 and the four were not rescued from Manave until a police search party, battling in a launch at great risk to themselves reached the islet late on the following day. Hunger, long exposure and injuries suffered from sharp coral had reduced the stranded party to a pitiful condition.

The Vatia-Vatukoula road was badly flooded and relays of cars were needed to get the party to the Mines hospital at Vatukoula.