Samoa’s nine islands lay in an area prone to tropical cyclones. In 1990 and 1991, despite a less than a one-in-a-hundred-years probability, Samoa experienced two catastrophic cyclones, Ofa and Val, with winds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour. The impact was disastrous—causing more than US$500 million dollars in damage, sweeping whole villages out to sea, wrecking critical infrastructure and flooding the capital, Apia.
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