recovery

Tonga Red Cross staff and volunteers have been assisting people from the moment the tsunami alert was triggered, and are ramping up the delivery of drinking water, temporary shelters and other critical relief supplies across the country.

Tonga Red Cross secretary general Sione Taumoefolau said its teams were using boat and trucks to take vital items to communities in need of the basic necessities.

Shelter was a top priority for families whose homes had been wiped out, he said.

Cairns, 51, was left paralysed in both legs after a major heart incident and subsequent surgeries two months ago.

He suffered an aortic dissection - a tear in the body's main artery - in Canberra and was rushed to Sydney's St Vincent's hospital where he spent a week on life support.

But, in a recent post to social media, the former Black Caps all-rounder describes what he calls "a flickering" in his right ankle.

"Super stoked about that. Toes are the furthest point from the brain and messages are slowly making their way down to them."

Fifita is up, about and out of the ICU at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital following successful laryngeal surgery - he is expected to make a full recovery and play rugby league again.

The veteran forward met with Leary, the Noosa triathlete hospitalised for over a month by a life-threatening bike crash in July, over the weekend while the pair are both recovering in hospital.

The World Cup winning Wallabies great came through a prolonged period of surgery, and the hope is that he, his wife, and two adult children, who all suffered injuries during the attack at their home in Brisbane, will make a full recovery.

But in the mean time the TRU's Chief Executive, Peter Harding, is working on his options for Tonga's forthcoming trip to the northern hemisphere, which is just a couple of months away.

The 30-year-old Cronulla playmaker snapped an Achilles tendon last September, prematurely ending a standout season which saw him lead the NRL for try assists.

Johnson and wife Kayla (nee Cullen) – a former Silver Ferns netballer – welcomed daughter Millah in August, not long before his injury.

Johnson has featured in a video on the Sharks' website detailing his rehabilitation workload while his Cronulla colleagues “get to run out on the field and pass a footy around’’.

Elena Procuta was at a meeting with government and non-government agencies where conditions in evacuation centres were discussed.

Government figures showed 4500 people being housed in 108 evacuation centres around Tonga, since Cyclone Gita made landfall there on Monday night, ripping roofs off houses, destroying crops, and destroying a church as well as Parliament House.

Previous experiences had shown women and children could be susceptible to physical and sexual abuse when displaced by disaster, and Ms Procuta said protecting the vulnerable was a key priority in Tonga.

The storm, which was briefly upgraded to category five yesterday before being lowered to category four again, is to the southeast of Vanuatu and is set to lose power as it passes to the south of New Caledonia.

Neither Vanuatu nor New Caledonia are expected to be hit hard by the storm, and it is expected to fall to category three before passing over Norfolk Island.

In my career as a mobility coach in professional sports, I've helped numerous athletes rehabilitate from sports hernia surgeries, so I was familiar with the recovery process and had set my expectations accordingly.

However, during my surgery prep and procedure, the doctor discovered that the damage to my core was considerably more than just a hernia.