Cyclone Rene is striking Tonga's main island of Tongatapu with strong category three winds at an average of 167 kilometres per hour and gusts well over 200 kph.
It has weakened slightly from earlier in the day when it was a category four storm ripping through the northern Vava'u group.
People on Tongatapu have been taking precautions all day, with Tonga's national broadcaster Radio Tonga broadcasting cyclone warnings and information right through the disaster.
However, it is possible that communications links between Tonga and the outside world may be interrupted with the Tonga Communications Corporation warning that high winds may force them to bring down masts which usually carry international phone calls.
The publisher of the Times of Tonga newspaper, Kalafi Moala, has told Pacific Beat he watched parts of his own property ripped apart in the winds.
Contact lost to outer islands
Earlier, Tropical Cyclone Rene made landfall in Tonga, generating hurricane force winds over Vava'u.
Alipate Waqaicelua, a cyclone forecaster at the Fiji Metservice's Tropical Cyclone Centre, says Rene is expected to have brought widespread damage to Vava'u. But communications from the northern island group have been down during the day.
"We expect damage to be severe," he said.
"From Vava'u it will pass very close or overhead of Ha'apai and Nomuka groups. There is still a possibility the centre may come very close or overhead of it [Tongatapu]."
A strong wind warning has also been issued for parts of Fiji including the Lau Islands, Lomaiviti, Kadavu, and south eastern Viti Levu.
On the eastern side of the international dateline in American Samoa, a 50-year-old maintenance worker was killed Friday when he fell from the roof of a three-storey building while trying to secure the building from Cyclone Rene.
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