The teachers' quarters at Nakoroboya built by Australian and Japanese aid a year before Cyclone Winston. Photo: RNZI/Alex Perrottet
Australia's Pacific minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells says her country will rebuild schools in Fiji to withstand category five cyclones.
Ms Fierravanti-Wells said she had visited Fiji and seen the devastation many families and communities were still suffering, seven months on from Cyclone Winston.
In February 2015, the Australian and Japanese governments unveiled new classrooms and teachers' quarters at the remote interior village of Nakoroboya, but they disappeared only a year later.
Ms Fierravanti-Wells said those buildings were built to category three standard, and the new ones would be further reinforced.
"My understanding is that they will be built to category five, and building back better is really a feature of what we would like to do.
"We know that disasters are going to hit, we know there's going to be another cyclone so it's important that whatever we build back is resilient to the next cyclone."