Wind damage dataset for buildings from 2016 tropical cyclone Winston in Fiji

Extreme winds caused by tropical cyclones offer a unique opportunity to evaluate physical damage to building structures. On 20 February 2016, Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Winston (TC Winston) made landfall in Fiji, causing damage to over 30, 000 buildings. This article presents an empirical wind building damage dataset for Fiji collected from onsite damage assessments in the TC Winston aftermath. The dataset represents over 700 building-specific records of hazard, building and damage variables recorded during a four-day survey in March 2016. Physical damage to building structures, contents, stock, equipment and plant are presented, along with disruption to residential building habitability and non-residential building services. The dataset provides a valuable record of building damage caused by TC Winston extreme winds that can be used with numerical wind model hazard intensity outputs to formulate building-specific wind vulnerability models for damage prediction in future extreme wind events.