After more than five years of living in temporary housing, the villagers of Tukuraki in the highlands Ba moved into their newly built, disaster resilient village yesterday.

The community was devastated in 2012 as a landslide buried eighty percent of their village and tragically took the lives of a young family including a toddler and a baby.

The community was forced to relocate to temporary homes as they were at risk of further landslides.

In the midst of recovering from the landslide, the community was hit by Cyclone Evan only ten months later and by TC Winston last year.

As a result, the Fiji Government deemed relocation for the inland community an urgent priority and approached the Pacific Community to support in this work.

Eleven homes and a community hall was officially opened by National Disaster Management, Inia Seruiratu.

“This relocation points out the fact that everyone will be affected by the impacts of climate change irrespective of our locality.”

Together with homes and the hall, a fish pond, a honey farms, and poultry farms have been built to assist villagers in income generation.