Niue cut off from world as full force of storm hits

By ANGELA GREGORY

Tiny, isolated and cut off from the outside world, the "rock of Polynesia" suffered from the worst of Cyclone Heta overnight.

The one-island raised atoll of Niue, 2400km northeast of New Zealand, cut its telephone communications as the cyclone bore down on it with gusts of up to 200km/h after lashing Samoa and Tonga's northern islands.

All contact with Niue was impossible after the satellite dish that provided telephone contact to the population of just under 2000 people was taken down for protection yesterday morning.

Weather forecasters said satellite images showed the island would have taken a hammering from mid-afternoon as the "eye wall" of the cyclone ripped 80km west of Niue.

"It's at a point now where the winds should be starting to ease off," MetService forecaster Stephen Ready said last night. Torrential rain would ease, but strong winds would buffet the atoll overnight.

"They will have been clobbered."

The Nadi Tropical Cyclone Centre said by 6am today the cyclone would have moved southeast of Niue. No other islands were in its path.


Mr Ready said the winds would have peaked to hurricane force - over 117km/h and up to 200km/h - and then eased to storm force.

The last big cyclone to hit Niue was Cyclone Ofa in February 1990. "This would be the next biggest, and potentially as devastating."

The 1990 cyclone was so strong it tossed boulders into the former Niue Hotel about 18m above sea level.

Niue's High Commissioner to New Zealand, Hima Takelesi, said from the island before communications were cut yesterday that the population was on full alert.

Power would probably also be cut as a safety precaution.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry spokesman Brad Tattersfield said 12 of 20 New Zealand tourists on Niue were staying at the High Commission in the capital, Alofi, last night.

Their resort was on an exposed cliff-top at Matavai. The others were in more weather-proof resorts.