ON April 14, 1979, The Fiji Times reported the death of a young mother who died from injuries sustained during Cyclone Meli.
The 10-year-old daughter of Fiji’s 52nd cyclone victim told this newspaper how she rescued her mother from the rubble of Vabea Church only to have her die in hospital two weeks later.
Asinate Katanavula, 26, of Vabea Village, Ono in Kadavu, died at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.
She left behind her husband Serelino Lule and three children — Kelera Koto, 10, Reijeli Rokosalumi, 8, and Paulini Teresia 5.
Kelera said tearfully that on the night of Cyclone Meli, the family fled to the church when the strongest winds hit the village.
The young girl, who only received minor injuries to her face and legs, said her mother was trapped in the rubble after the church roof came down.
She was still removing pieces of loose brick trapping her mother’s legs when another brick fell and landed on her head.
The medical superintendent at the CWMH, Dr Champak Rathod, said Mrs Katanavula died from head injuries.
Her husband was also in the hospital with a broken right leg.
The couple also lost their 11-month-old daughter, Vika Lule, who was one of 19 people killed outright in the Vabea Village church rubble.
The children were then taken to live with relatives at Wailekutu, Lami.
Dr Rathod said there was another young man from Kadavu at the hospital, and he was in satisfactory condition.
The man “appeared to be out of danger” but had still not regained consciousness from head injuries.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health made an urgent visit to Kadavu after a total of 98 cases of flu and diarrhoea was isolated in the villages of Naqara and Nabouwalu on Ono.
Kavala Health Centre on the Kadavu mainland reported an increased number of flu cases being treated while Nukuvou Village reported it suffered mild epidemic of flu, but was now down to only one remaining case.
Dr Vuli Mataitoga, the director of curative medical services who flew to the island with the government’s consultant virologist, Dr Jona Mataika, and another doctor from the CWMH, Dr Tuiketei Malani, said his team had visited all the villages in the group to see if the epidemic was more widespread.
The team took blood samples which were brought to Suva for testing to identify exactly what strain of virus was causing the epidemic.
Apart from a few isolated cases on the main island, the present epidemic was confined to the villages of Naqara, which had 68 in bed with the illness, and Nabouwalu which had 30 cases down with the flu, Dr Mataitoga said.
The symptoms were headache, fever, coughing, chest pains and generalised weakness, with children mainly being affected by diarrhoea, Dr Mataitoga added.
Some of the people affected had developed very high temperatures but there were no more very serious cases in either village.
A seriously ill man who had developed chest complications as the result of the flu had, however, been evacuated to Suva.
The report said there was a possibility that more cases were likely to develop complications, according to Dr Mataitoga.
