A family on Qamea Island, including their one-year-old, dashed for cover under a classroom floor as Cyclone Yasa battered through parts of the Northern Division on Thursday night.

Leone Solovani said the winds were so strong that they could see the roof and walls of their home beginning to rip apart.

Mr Solovani is a school teacher at Vuanicau Primary School in Togo Village on Qamea Island in Cakaudrove.

“We were sleeping in our sitting room and around 9.30pm the roof and the wall was ripped off,” he said.

“I called my family members all out to join the rest of the group to take cover with the rest of the family under the classroom.”

Some families, he said, had evacuated to other classrooms but within minutes after they dashed out of their home, those families faced the same danger.

Luckily, he said, they also moved out of the classroom in time. Mr Solovani said five classroom buildings and staff quarters were damaged.

Another teacher, Esiteri Dilailai said: “I did not sleep the whole night. I was really scared of the gusty winds. I saw a staff quarters porch being ripped off too.”

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