Cyclone chaos: NZ flies to rescue

By ANGELA GREGORY

A seriously injured baby whose mother was killed in Niue as Cyclone Heta devastated the island will be flown to New Zealand on an Air Force Hercules for treatment.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Brad Tattersfield said the mother and baby were in a house which collapsed in the capital, Alofi, during the cyclone.

Efforts were being made to fly the baby to Auckland on the return flight of an Air Force Hercules which was to leave Whenuapai at 3am today.

A Niue community internet site suggested the mother may have been a nurse who worked at the island's only hospital, which was destroyed.

Winds averaging 120km/h hammered the raised coral atoll, injuring several people and destroying buildings and crops.

Premier Young Vivian yesterday called on the 20,000 Niueans in New Zealand to come home and help rebuild the country of 1700 people.

Mr Vivian - who was in Auckland with family after the death of his wife last week - was flying back to Niue this morning on the Hercules.

For the Viliamu family of Auckland and Niue, the cyclone proved too much.

For 70 years their clifftop timber and concrete-walled home on the west coast of Niue had survived every cyclone. But Heta flattened it on Tuesday evening.

Mr Viliamu, an Otara sales manager, said he was able to talk briefly to his sister in Niue by satellite phone yesterday morning.

He was surprised at the damage because the strong house, sited 30m above sea level, had withstood previous blasts.

"We often use the house as a gauge of the severity of the cyclone.

"It had often lost a few sheets of iron off the roof and the winds left a few holes in the walls. This time it is all but destroyed."

He had been staying at the house just a week ago.

Mr Tattersfield said an overseas volunteer worker, not a New Zealander, had a broken hip and arrangements were also being made to bring him to Auckland on the Hercules.

He said other people had less serious injuries, and the island's two doctors were working in a makeshift hospital in the Public Works Department.

They had requested pain relief, intravenous drips and surgical gowns among other supplies.

Delivery and caesarean section equipment was also being taken for several pregnant women.

Mr Tattersfield said the RNZAF C-130 Hercules would carry emergency relief supplies and personnel, including a three-person medical team, and was expected to arrive at first light.

Relief supplies on the flight would include 1000 large tarpaulins, 100 blankets, water pumps, portable generators and compressors, a water purifier, water quality testing kits, three satellite phones and chainsaws.

Personnel would include representatives from Civil Defence, Red Cross, NZAid and AusAid - New Zealand's international aid agency and its Australian equivalent.

They would assess Niue's immediate and medium-term relief needs.

Dr Jim Salinger, of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said Cyclone Heta had consistent wind speeds of 230km/h, and gusts reaching 275km/h.

"That is huge," he said.

The MetService said the centre of the cyclone was about 72km west of Niue at its closest, in the early evening on Tuesday.

Duty minister Paul Swain said all New Zealanders believed to be on the island were safe and well.

Twelve had stayed at High Commissioner Sandra Lee Vercoe's residence during the cyclone, which hit just after 1pm and peaked about 6pm. The High Commission office, in Alofi, had roof damage.

Ms Lee Vercoe said the town had been flattened. The former Cabinet Minister described the cyclone as the "worst in living memory".

Communication and electricity on the island were out, and the only contact was through satellite phone.

Many roads were closed, but the airport remained operational.

The cyclone had earlier wrought havoc in the Tokelau Islands, American Samoa, Samoa and islands in the north of the Tongan kingdom.

Yesterday, it had moved away from other populated islands into the open waters of the south-east Pacific.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his Government was awaiting the New Zealand experts' assessment of the damage before sending help.

Niue has been a self-governing state since 1974 in free association with New Zealand, which administers its foreign affairs.