Cyclone Tomas toll rises to three - Man confirmed dead on Rabi

[Stacey King]

17:29 AEST Fri Mar 19 2010

12 hours 59 minutes ago

Cyclone Tomas has claimed two lives in Fiji but relief agencies don't expect to report more deaths.

P style="FONT-SIZE: 14px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold">The death toll from a destructive cyclone that smashed into Fiji rose to three on Friday after emergency authorities confirmed two more deaths.

The body of a man who went missing near the northern town of Labasa was recovered by police on Thursday after he went missing trying to cross a swollen river on Saturday as Cyclone Tomas approached the Pacific island nation.

Another man from the northern island of Rabi was also confirmed dead on Friday after a tree fell on his house during the cyclone.

Earlier a woman drowned last weekend while trying to save family members caught in pounding waves off the coast of the second largest island Vanua Levu.

"At the moment the death toll is being left open until the assessments in the Lau group are completed, which we expect in the next 24 to 48 hours," said National Disaster Management Committee operations officer Anthony Blake.

The category four Cyclone Tomas packed winds averaging 175km/h as it crossed the northern and eastern islands on Monday and Tuesday.

Many coastal areas were wrecked by waves from a storm surge generated by the cyclone as well as the destructive winds.

More then 300 houses have so far been reported damaged in the eastern Lau islands - including more than 200 on the island of Vanuabalavu - and officials said this figure would rise as assessments in the isolated region continued.

Blake told AFP there was still a shortage of tents and tarpaulins to shelter homeless villagers, although more were expected to arrive from Australia and New Zealand over the next few days.

Two transport aircraft from Australia and New Zealand were due to return home Friday and Saturday respectively after carrying out aerial surveys and delivering relief supplies to the north.

Two ships carrying supplies to villages in the eastern islands were due to leave the capital Suva on Saturday, Blake said.