Not long after Anil Deo took shelter in his neighbour's house, he saw the category five winds of Tropical Cyclone Yasa rip his home apart.
Mr Deo and his four children live in Soasoa in Labasa, a town of about 30,000 people on the northern coast of Fiji's second-biggest island, Vanua Levu.
The island bore the brunt of Yasa when it hit Fiji on Thursday night, leaving at least four people dead.
Entire villages have been flattened and thousands of people are now homeless after what is one of the strongest storms ever recorded.
"My neighbour called me to his place," Mr Deo told the ABC.
"As soon as we were there, the house blew away. We were lucky that no lives were lost."
The full extent of the devastation in Fiji is only just starting to emerge as communications are gradually restored to hard-hit areas.
The Fiji Red Cross Society said work done by Sunday afternoon suggested a "devastation assessment" of 40 per cent in Makuata province, where Labasa is situated.
About 70 per cent of Bua province in the island's south was devastated, the Red Cross said, while 100 per cent of Kia Island was hit.
"It was a very, very dangerous cyclone. All of my belongings, my house, have been blown away by the cyclone," Mr Deo said.
"And I have no idea how can I cope."
The storm weakened to a category three storm as it tracked east on Friday, hitting far-flung islands in the Eastern Division of the country.
There were more than 10 islands where communication lines could not yet be established by Sunday afternoon, the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) said.
One man, a farmer from Bua, remained missing.
Authorities are still working to restore power and water to many other parts of the country.
More than 7,000 people remained in government emergency shelters on Sunday afternoon.
Thousands of rations make their way to hard-hit areas
Mr Deo, a single father, said he was laid off from his sawmill job earlier in the year due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Fiji's tourism-driven economy.
The country has had fewer than 50 recorded COVID-19 cases, but a lack of tourists has hit the economy hard.
"It's very hard for me to cope, because I have four daughters to feed," he said.
The family is continuing to shelter in a neighbour's home and Mr Deo said the village had helped provide him with some food, but they were not sure what lay ahead.
"My daughters are very afraid at the moment, after seeing this scene," he said.
More than 100 government and Fiji Military Forces personnel left for Vanua Levu on Saturday night to distribute 10,000 food rations and non-food items, according to the NDMO.
Initial damage assessment teams were also deployed to the affected provinces.
"We are mobilising every resource available to respond in areas severely affected by this latest super-cyclone," tweeted Fiji Prime Minister Bainimarama.
The Royal Australian Air Force sent a military aircraft to assist the Fijian Government with "reconnaissance and a damage assessment of affected areas" on Saturday.
"Defence stands ready to provide further assistance if requested," a spokesperson said.
Local charity LifeFlight Fiji has also been conducting assessment flights over the affected areas, and said Bua province had the most notable damage from the air.
"What we're seeing in terms of where we find significant destruction is a lot of roofs of houses, houses that are tin or timber and tin," LifeFlight founder Anthony Blake said.
He said storm surges had caused significant impact along parts of the coast.
"The communities in the affected areas are quite resilient," Mr Blake said.
"Although they have been impacted by a category five storm, they have shown resilience in getting back on their feet."
Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has linked the frequency and ferocity of cyclones to hit Fiji in recent years to climate change, saying "this is a climate emergency".
