Tropical Cyclone Yasa Response

Tropical Cyclone (TC) Yasa made landfall over Vanua Levu, Fiji on 17 December, 2020. With its Category 5 intensity, this was the strongest storm to hit Fiji since TC Winston in 2016. The island nation’s infrastructure, buildings and agricultural areas suffered heavy destruction in TC Yasa’s wake. The storm’s damage has affected almost every Fiji resident (more than 880,000 people), and some 8,000 people there have taken shelter in more than 180 evacuation centers.

While information is still being gathered and analyzed, Fiji government officials said they expect hundreds of millions of dollars will be needed for recovery; international assistance is being mobilized in response. In addition to shelter, food and medical supplies, affected people urgently need basic items such as buckets and latrines. (Above, a destroyed home in a village on Vanua Levu; Photo credit WASH Cluster Fiji.)

Our Response

Field Ready’s prior disaster risk-reduction work – including sustained efforts to establish local manufacturing capabilities of urgently needed relief items – is poised to make a decided difference in response to TC Yasa.

With our partners the Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services and UNICEF, Field Ready is preparing to deploy our locally made emergency latrines to the worst-affected areas, initially focusing on evacuation centers (such as the one pictured below; Photo credit WASH Cluster Fiji). Developed by Field Ready with local manufacturer Rotomould Ltd., the latrines were produced at the request of MoHMs and UNICEF to meet a gap in previous responses to severe cyclone damage; this is the latrine's first emergency deployment. We currently have 250 latrines for MoHMs that can be deployed immediately with our technical staff aiding their installation. Our capacity includes the ability to make 100 latrines per week.

We also manufacture several models of foot-operated handwashing devices - both portable and permanent – that we anticipate deploying to evacuation centers and emergency health facilities. Additionally, we have 2,800 drinking-water buckets that we made in Fiji with manufacturing partner MIL that can be deployed to the most at-need populations as soon as authorities complete their assessments.

The key areas that leverage from our existing support to them include:

1. Sanitation – rapid installation of field latrines, including shelters

2. Hygiene – rapid installation of portable handwashing stations and foot-operated tap adapters

3. Water – provision of drinking water buckets

These items are already funded and produced through our existing partnership with UNICEF (except the 2,800 drinking water buckets produced in anticipation of need but not yet funded).

Coordination and Partnerships

For a first-stage response, Field Ready requires financial support to deploy the field staff, coordination and logistics.

Field Ready has been in close contact with the Fiji WASH and other Clusters as well as MoHMS for specific needs. Having worked in the region for several years, and maintaining a regional hub in Suva, Fiji, we have been funded by numerous donors (including USAID/BHA, UNICEF, AHP/DFAT and others) prior to TC Yasa.

We're linking with other groups, such as ADRA (shown above, distributing our drinking-water buckets; Photo credit ADRA Fiji) through the AHP Country Committee mechanism to develop a joint program funded by the Australian government.

Field Ready is also linking with partner Sea Mercy, as we have for previous disasters, where Sea Mercy supplies portable drinking water filters that are distributed with our buckets. They also organize a flotilla of small yachts to reach the numerous smaller islands.

We'll work in coordination with the Fiji National Disaster Management Office, other responding organizations and the affected communities themselves to ensure an effective and efficient response - and update here as we progress.