The deadly cyclone Harold, which is sweeping the Pacific Ocean, hit Fiji on Wednesday after devastating the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The tropical cyclone weakened from a category 5, the most dangerous of all, to 4, but hit Fiji with winds of up to 240 km / h, said the national meteorological service, NaDraki. The cyclone was offshore south of Fiji's main island, Viti Levu, passing closer to land than originally planned.
A precedent in 2015. Harlod remains "particularly dangerous", warned the weather service, asking residents to seek refuge in churches, schools and other solid buildings. Harold killed 27 people in the Solomon Islands in early April, before strengthening in a category 5 cyclone, the highest there is, and touching on Monday the island of Espiritu Santo, the largest in the Vanuatu archipelago.
Luganville, the country's second city with 16,500 inhabitants, was hit hard by the storm that destroyed buildings and caused floods. Kendra Gates Derousseau, director for Vanuatu of the NGO World Vision, said that one of her contacts in Luganville compared the damage to that of cyclone Pam, which had killed 11 people in 2015. The international community had largely mobilized to help Vanuatu after Pam's passage.