State of Emergency declared for Vava‘u and Ha‘apai [1]
Saturday, January 11, 2014 - 11:00. Updated on Monday, January 19, 2015 - 16:00.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
A state of emergency for Vava‘u and Ha‘apai was declared at 8:00am today, [January 11, 2014] as Severe Tropical Cyclone Ian strengthened to Category 5, battering the groups with damaging gales and heavy rains overnight and today, with powerful intermittent gusts that are forecast increasing to 110 knots (203km per hour) with momentary gusts to 155 knots (287km).
However the 9:30am advisory from Fua'amotu Tropical Cyclone warning Centre has now downgraded TC Ian to Category 4 with gusts up to 135 knots. (9:30am Saturday January 11,Tropical Cyclone Advisory [2])
The Director of Emergencies, Leveni Aho, said the Prime Minister Lord Tu'ivakano had endorsed the SOE, as early damage reports started coming in to the Disaster Management Office from Vava‘u's outer islands.
“It means we have the national resources ready to deploy in areas of need and authorities are given power to evacuate if needed,” he said at 9:30 am.
“Ian is just to the west of Vava‘u and it's still coming south. We have received a damages report from the island of Hunga and our team are still out trying to get a feel, but there doesn't appear to have been much damage in Vava'u at the moment, but because it's a Category 5, we have recommended and received an endorsement from the Prime Minister of declaration of a SOE for Vava‘u and Ha‘apai,” said Leveni.
“In Tonga we don't often have Cat 5 - the strange thing about this one is that it 's very narrow, the eye is quite small, so it's high intensity, but if it was a normal cyclone we would have felt it here in Nuku'alofa, but so far the eye is so small.
“We will liaise with our Emergency Ops centre in Neiafu and they will update us. Vava‘u is the only island to report. We are we awaiting others. Masina Talakai the secretary at the Vava‘u Governor’s Office is setting up with key players, and we have Kepu Ioane at the EOC in Ha‘apai."
Leveni said they had identified a lot of locations available for evacuations “We let the people on the ground make decisions, and arrangements are in place for that.”
Ha‘apai
The Ha‘apai islands remain very exposed and lie in the incoming cyclone's track today.
“After 7am we haven’t had any reports from Ha‘apai but we know the wind is getting to Ha‘apai in the next 6 to 12 hours, and it all depends how fast it comes through,” he said.
On Friday evening patients in the island's seafront hospital were supposed to be relocated to Taufa‘ahau School, “because there is a potential for sea surge at the hospital.”
He advised outer islanders to stay put right now.
“We don't want any interisland transporation at this point of time - they must keep safe where they are and maintain communications with Kepu in Ha‘apai.”
Leveni said that donor partners had offered the services of an Orion surveillance aircraft, and “we will continue talking about that in a few minutes,” he said.