A relentless Cyclone Freddy currently battering southern Africa has killed at least 66 people in Malawi and Mozambique since it struck the continent for a second time on Saturday night, authorities in both countries confirmed.
At least 39 people in the Blantyre mall in Malawi have been killed and several others are missing or injured, the city’s chief executive told The Associated Press on Monday. Mozambique authorities reported that five people have been killed in the country since Saturday.
The deaths in Malawi include five members of a single family who died in Blantyre’s Ndirande township after Freddy’s destructive winds and heavy rains demolished their home, according to a police report. A three-year-old girl who was left “trapped in the rubble” He is also among the victims, and his parents are among the missing, authorities said.
The Malawi Red Cross has reported that the local government had registered as of Monday night (local time) a total of 66 fatalities and 93 injuries. Organization staff collaborate in search operations and care for the victims of this cyclone.
“We suspect that this figure will increase as we are trying to compile a national report from our south-west, south-east and east police offices covering the affected areas,” Malawi police spokesman Peter Kalaya told the AP.
The cyclone hit Mozambique and Malawi during the weekend and until Monday. It is the second time that the record-breaking cyclone, which has been wreaking destruction in southern Africa since late February, has made landfall on mainland Africa. It also hit the island states of Madagascar and Réunion as it traversed the ocean.
The cyclone has intensified a record seven times and has the highest accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) ever recorded, which is a measure of how much energy a cyclone has released over time. Freddy recorded more energy during its lifetime than an entire typical US hurricane season.
Freddy first hatched near Australia in early February and traveled throughout the southern Indian Ocean. It is destined to be the longest tropical cyclone ever recorded. The UN weather agency convened a panel of experts to determine if it has broken the record set by Hurricane John in 1994 of 31 days.
Freddy made landfall in the Mozambique seaport of Quelimane on Saturday, where there are reports of damage to homes and farmland, though the extent of the destruction is still unclear. Telecommunications and other essential infrastructure are still cut across much of the affected Zambezia province, impeding rescue and other humanitarian efforts.
The regional tropical cyclone monitoring center of the French meteorological agency Météo-France in Réunion warned on Monday that “heaviest rains will continue for the next 48 hours” while Freddy advances. The central provinces of Mozambique and Malawi have been identified as especially vulnerable to “flooding and landslides in mountainous areas” by weather monitors.
Much of the damage experienced in Malawi is to houses built in areas prohibited by law, such as mountainous regions or near rivers where they battle landslides, record flooding, and overflowing rivers. The cyclone has forced the Malawi government to suspend schools in 10 districts in its southern region “as a precautionary measure.”
Freddy is expected to weaken and return to sea only on Wednesdayaccording to Météo-France.
(with information from AP and EP)
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Source-www.infobae.com