KEY POINTS:
The exodus of hundreds of New Zealanders from riot-torn Tonga is expected to start tomorrow.
Yesterday a New Zealand joint defence force contingent arrived to secure the international airport.
Commercial flights were cancelled after rioters and looters devastated the Nuku'alofa city centre on Thursday and Friday.
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it is working with Tongan authorities to get air links restored.
>>NZ to review aid to Tonga
It is understood there are about 600 New Zealanders resident in Tonga and about 100 tourists.
The first Air New Zealand flight is scheduled to leave Auckland at 9.30am tomorrow.
Yesterday 71 New Zealand Defence Force personnel and seven police arrived in Tonga on an air force Boeing.
Lieutenant-Colonel Darren Beck of the New Zealand Army is leading the task force of more than 150 troops and police from Australia and New Zealand.
Its first task was to secure Fau'amotu International Airport, foreign embassies and infrastructure. Forensic experts will also help identity the bodies of eight people who died in rioting.
Seven children were among the eleven New Zealanders on the air force Boeing when it returned to Whenuapai last night.
Two more Chinese shops in Tonga were torched in attacks on Friday night, but the city was "reasonably calm" on Saturday, Police Commander Sinilau Kolokihakaufisi told The Associated Press.
He said that no one was in the shops during the attacks on Friday night, and that up to 200 ethnic Chinese - one-fifth the number living in Tonga - have sought refuge after about 30 Chinese-owned stores and businesses were torched.
Officials said about 80 per cent of the capital was destroyed.
As in many South Pacific countries, ethnic Chinese traders have a large chunk of the economy in Tonga's capital, and are sometimes resented by locals who perceive them as outsiders despite many Chinese families being there for generations.
China's Ambassador to Tonga, Hu Yeshun, said that the embassy had "received over 150 people, whose houses or stores were destroyed by the mobs," and that his staff were still trying to contact all Chinese residents to make sure they were safe.
Kolokihakaufisi said the violence had displaced about 200 Chinese, many of them Tongan citizens, who are being accommodated at the Police College and a village outside the city.
"They're guarded by people in the village," he said.
The violence was triggered by anger that Parliament might finish this year's session without settling plans to introduce reforms that would give democratically elected lawmakers a parliamentary majority over royally appointed legislators.
The government had agreed Tuesday to a plan ensuring that 21 lawmakers in the 30-seat Parliament will be elected starting in 2008 - but it came too late to prevent the rioting.
Firefighters on Friday found eight charred bodies while searching burned-out shops, businesses and hotels. At least six of the victims were believed to be looters or rioters.
Kolokihakaufisi said that some people were still listed as missing, and not all damaged buildings had been checked, so more deaths could not be ruled out.
Senituli, a spokesman for Prime Minister Fred Sevele, said the foreign forces' arrival was "an acknowledgment our security apparatus is ... short of manpower."
Sevele on Friday invoked security laws to deploy the country's small army into the city.
Tonga's king said he was greatly distressed that a small but dangerous criminal element had caused deaths, injuries and property damage, and offered sympathy to victims' families those whose businesses were wrecked.
"Every measure of the law will be followed to track down and prosecute the perpetrators and those who incited and agitated this mindless criminal destruction," he said in a statement.
Tonga has about 108,000 people.
- NZPA
