A BAKA tree believed to be more than 50-years old in downtown Suva has fallen.
The tree fell on a vehicle and also damaged the taxi base in the process.
And the owners of the taxi base — Piccadilly Taxis — say this incident has affected their business.
Taxi base owner Raj Singh said the tree fell at 11pm on Monday and neither had it been removed nor cleared so far.
"A taxi was damaged, the base has been destroyed and (there is) no electricity. How can we conduct our business?" Mr Singh asked. He said they had called the Suva City Council and they were told that it would be cleared but nothing had been done.
"It's been four days now and the tree is still not cleared. We lost some of our customers. This base is our bread and butter," Mr Singh said.
He said most of the trees along the Queen Elizabeth Drive were there when his father used to operate the base back in the 90s.
"I took up this base in 1999 and I believe that this tree is older than me."
Base operator Ravi Kant, 33, said there was no strong wind or rain and that the tree could have fallen because it was old.
Suva City Council special administrator Chandu Umaria said they were working on clearing the tree first before proceeding to the next level.
"We are currently doing an internal investigation and will write a report for the insurance company," Mr Umaria said.
He said the insurance company was also doing their assessment of the damage.
"In the meantime, we are working on clearing the tree, getting a report on the assessment and will put the claim to the insurance company."
Mr Umaria said the work would take time and it could not be done in a few days. "The work cannot be carried out in one or two days but we need time to get it sorted. This is an act of God that nobody can predict."