A powerful cyclone was barrelling towards Mozambique on Wednesday, February 22, after battering Madagascar where it killed five people but left less devastation in its wake than feared, emergency officials said.
Authorities gave a provisional toll of five dead after Cyclone Freddy made landfall on the Indian Ocean island late Tuesday, packing winds of around 130 kilometers per hour. More than 16,700 people were affected and around 4,500 homes flooded or damaged, the National Risk Management Office (BNGRC) said in an update.
France's weather service Meteo-France said Freddy weakened as it tracked across Madagascar, dropping to an average wind speed of 55 kph. But, the agency warned, the storm would pick up strength from the warm Mozambique Channel as it headed towards the African mainland.
Cyclone Freddy is expected to land Friday in regions between central and southern Mozambique, more than 500 kilometers north of the capital Maputo, and could reach Zimbabwe. Mozambique's government has declared a red alert to allow agencies to prepare for a potential emergency.
Freddy had developed into one of the biggest cyclones in recent years to threaten Madagascar, which is typically lashed several times during the annual November-April storm season. In the end, it brought less rain than feared but still ripped roofs off buildings and flattened rice fields and fruit trees.
It made landfall north of Mananjary, a coastal town of 25,000 people that remains devastated by last year's Cyclone Batsirai, which killed more than 130 people. "It's a dry cyclone compared to Batsirai, so it brought fewer rains, but the winds were stronger, this is why infrastructure was badly affected," risk management senior official Faly Aritiana Fabien told Agence France Presse (AFP). "The recorded damage is almost only related to the wind."