Story highlights Government says nationwide curfew will be lifted at 5:30 a.m. Monday

Officials report one fatality and extensive damage

(CNN) At least one person was killed when the most powerful storm on record in the Southern Hemisphere struck Fiji, a United Nations official told CNN.

Winds that reached 184 mph lashed the tiny island nation in the Pacific, felling trees, knocking out power and causing heavy flooding before it made landfall about 7 p.m. Saturday (2 a.m. ET), reported the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

"Winston was a monster of a cyclone," Fiji resident Nazeem Kasim told CNN. "I have not experienced anything like this before in my life, nor has my 60-year-old father."

The worst of the storm is believed to have passed, and Fiji has started to assess and clean up the damage inflicted by the storm, Sune Gudnitz, the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Regional Office for the Pacific, told CNN.

So far, the government has reported only one fatality, in Nabasovi, on Koro Island. The extent of injuries was not immediately known, as damage was expected to be the worst in remote villages.

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