An ill wind blows some good

From The Editor’S Desk

DOES it have to take a cyclone with 120 knot winds to get something done? After Cyclone Kina ripped its way through the Fiji group on January 2 and 3 something finally seems to be being done about the country’s decrepit weather radar.

Cyclone Kina killed at least 21 people in Fiji and caused damage estimated at SKI 65 million. However the cyclone could not be tracked by the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Nadi as the radar was not operating.

Staff at the centre had to rely on

satellite pictures to keep track of Kina.

However fixes done this way can be off the mark by up to 60 miles. It was only the professionalism of the staff and some good guess work that kept people fairly well in formed.

But guess work and estimates should not be used when lives are at risk.

The 35-year-old

radar has not worked properly since No vember 1990. Accord ing to the acting Di rector of Meteorology, Rajendra Prasad, the

radar should have been replaced 10 year ago. He said it is old and obsolete and cannot be repaired as spare parts can no longer be obtained.

Prasad warned last March Fiji could face a catastrophe if nothing was done about the radar. That was at the end of the last cyclone season. We are now into a new cyclone season with the same radar.

Given the frequency of cyclones in this part of the world and that 12 countries in the region are directly served by the

Fiji radar, one would have thoughu keeping the radar in good working order would be a priority.

The Fiji government has cited the higH cost as the main reason the radar has not' been replaced. A new radar system will] cost about SF3 million surely not toco much if the 12 countries reliant on Fijii chip in. Then there are always the aid donors.

Actually on January 4 the day aften Cyclone Kina the Australian in Suva put out a media release to say thea

Australian Inter

national Develop

ment Assistance 3 Bureau would helpc install a new radan system in Fiji. Ap

parently in Sep

tember the Fijii government had! asked for assistances in providing a new\ radar, AIDAB hope to t have the new sys- tern installed before ; the next cyclone; season. Let’s hope ; this one doesn’t 1 have to fall to ( pieces before it is f replaced.

Destroyed: the remnants of a home