Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which is sweeping the Indian Ocean, was heading towards Mozambique on Wednesday evening, after losing power but causing five deaths in Madagascar.
More than 16,600 Malagasy in total have been affected, with some 4,500 houses flooded or damaged, said the National Risk Management Office (BNGRC).
Thousands of people had been placed in emergency accommodation as a preventive measure. The full extent of the damage is being assessed.
Météo-France reported that Freddy weakened while crossing Madagascar and the average wind speed fell to 55 km/h.
But the agency warned that the cyclone would continue to progress towards the African continent. Météo-France has warned that it could regain strength in the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel.
It is expected to make landfall on Friday in areas between central and southern Mozambique, more than 500 km north of the capital Maputo, and could potentially reach Zimbabwe.
The government of Mozambique has issued a red alert and put the emergency services on alert.
Considered a “supercyclone” by forecasters, with extreme winds averaging 220 km/h and gusts of up to 320 km/h, it did not, however, have a devastating effect either on Reunion or in Mauritius where it did not make landfall.
The cyclone, born in early February at the tip of Bali and which crossed the entire Indian Ocean, arrived weakened in Madagascar with winds down to 130 km / h on average.
Freddy finally hit Madagascar on Tuesday at 7:20 p.m. local time (4:20 p.m. GMT), landing for the first time about 500 km from the capital Antananarivo, in the region of Mananjary, a coastal city of 25,000 that had already been largely destroyed last year. by Cyclone Batsirai, which killed more than 120 people.
On Wednesday in Mananjary, residents were picking up planks scattered here and there in the streets. Pieces of their house that they intend to use to rebuild, they explained joined by AFP on the phone. Many homes have lost their roofs.
Before the arrival of the storm, the Malagasy, accustomed to cyclones, had nevertheless ballasted the roofs with sandbags, as they do before each new episode of this type. But the winds were sometimes stronger. Schools remained closed in several provinces, as did public transport.
“There is mainly wind damage on landing. We are still evaluating it,” Faly Aritiana Fabien of the BNGRC told AFP.
The harvests have also been violently shaken and the country, among the poorest in the world, already fears a shortage of rice and fruit.
According to local NGO representatives contacted by AFP, “the damage is not as significant as that of Cyclone Batsirai”.
And according to the latest report from Météo-France on Wednesday afternoon, “the weather conditions continue to improve gradually in Madagascar”.
“After landing, the system is expected to weaken over southern African lands but will continue to pose a serious rain threat” in Mozambique but also in Zimbabwe and South Africa, with the risk of flooding, explained to the AFP Sébastien Langlade, head of cyclone forecasting at Météo-France for the Indian Ocean.
About ten storms or cyclones cross the southwest Indian Ocean each year during the hurricane season, which runs from November to April.
Madagascar had already been hit by a powerful tropical storm in January that killed around 30 people. The country is also plagued by extreme drought in a large area of ??the south, which is causing acute malnutrition and pockets of famine.
23/02/2023 10:19:15 – Antananarivo (AFP) – © 2023 AFP