At least three people were killed in Madagascar over the weekend as Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi brought heavy rainfall and flooding to the island on its way to the African mainland, news reports said.
The French island territory of Mayotte, the archipelagic country of Comoros, and Mozambique were also affected by the storm. It came less than a month after Mayotte was battered by the deadly Cyclone Chido.
Dikeledi formed in the Southern Indian Ocean, between Indonesia and Australia, earlier this month, then intensified as it made landfall in northern Madagascar on Jan. 11.
More than 15,000 people have been displaced across northern Madagascar, according to a European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations flash report (ECHO Flash) posted on Jan. 13. The report also cited information from the Interdepartmental Crisis Management Operational Centre (COGIC) saying around 20,000 people in Mayotte had to evacuate their homes.
Although Dikeledi had weakened slightly by the time it reached Mayotte, the archipelago saw strong winds, flash floods and landslides on Jan. 12, resulting in infrastructure damage. A local TV station reported that Mbouini, a village that was one of the few to survive Cyclone Chido, ended up being flooded by rains brought by Dikeledi.
A Mbouini resident, Massa, told Agence France-Presse they were “traumatized” by both Chido and Dikeledi. “We’re only in the middle of the rainy season, so we don’t know what’s going to happen between now and February or March,” the resident said.
“Mayotte faced an intense tropical storm. The impact was violent,” Manuel Valls, the French minister for overseas territories, said as quoted by France24. There were no reported casualties in the archipelago.
Francois-Xavier Bieuville, the Mayotte prefect, said the territory “is very fragile.”
“We still have extremely strong winds and rainfall that is just as strong,” Bieuville was quoted saying on television.
The ECHO Flash report said Cyclone Dikeledi is expected to further intensify as it moves southward through the Mozambique Channel from Jan. 14 to 15. Very heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges are expected in Madagascar, Mayotte, Comoros and Mozambique in the next two days.
During the onslaught of Cyclone Chido, the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Mayotte in more than 90 years, at least 36 people were killed in the French territory. Residents there mostly live in shantytowns, in houses made from weak materials. More than 120 people died in Mozambique from Chido.
A United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) flash update released on Jan. 11 said response efforts are already ongoing in Madagascar. Some emergency stocks and cash assistance have already been provided to a select number of households.
Banner image of Cyclone Dikeledi passing by northern Madagascar. Satellite image by NASA via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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