Workers are scrambling to reach hard-hit outer islands in Fiji to fully assess the damage of tropical cyclone Winston. The storm, which is the most powerful storm on record in the southern hemisphere, killed at least 20 people, destroyed homes, uprooted giant trees and cutting off water, telephone and electricity to thousands. Power lines exploded, destructive, howling winds popped rivets from tin roofs constantly throughout the night.”
“Winston was a monster of a cyclone,” Fiji resident Nazeem Kasim. “I have not experienced anything like this before in my life, nor has my 60-year-old father.”
Winds in the record-breaking category five cyclone reached 296 kilometers per hour (184 mph). The previous record was 178 mph in the Solomon Islands in 2002 and in Australia in 2006. Schools became shelters and residents were asked to limit their movements.
The Fiji Islands lies in the South Pacific Ocean some 1,800 miles from Australia’s east coast. Structures in the smaller islands would not likely have been built to withstand a category five storm. “Families may have lost their homes and crops, therefore leaving them without shelter, food and a livelihood.
“Even now [Satan] is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5. The Great Controversy, pages 589-590
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