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Cyclone Batsirai swept out of Madagascar on Monday after killing 21 people, displacing 70,000 and devastating the drought-hit island’s agricultural heartland, leading the UN to warn of a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Madagascar was already reeling from a tropical storm which killed 55 people late last month, and the latest extreme weather event came as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the continent is “bearing both the brunt and the cost” of global warming.
After drenching the fellow Indian Ocean island of La Reunion, Batsirai made landfall in Madagascar’s east on Saturday evening bringing heavy rain and winds of 165 kilometres (102 miles) per hour.
Jean Benoit Manhes, a representative of UN children’s agency UNICEF in the country, told AFP on Monday that Batsirai left Madagascar at 7 am (0400 GMT), heading towards the Mozambique Channel.
Madagascar’s disaster management agency said that Batsirai had left 21 people dead and forced 70,000 from their homes.
UNICEF warned that many of the victims were likely to be children, who make up more than half of the country’s population.
City ‘completely destroyed’
Batsirai first hit a sparsely populated agricultural area in the country’s east on Saturday, before weakening.
In Mananjary, the cyclone’s epicentre, residents gazed helplessly at their city in ruins.
“Our house collapsed, we don’t know where to go, we have no food. Everything has been destroyed,” said resident Berthine.
In the southern central city of Fianarantsoa, footage showed a building reduced to rubble.
As the cyclone moved inland it caused flooding that ravaged rice fields in the country’s central “breadbasket”, UNICEF said.
“The impact of the cyclone does not end today, it will last for several months, particularly the impact on agriculture,” Manhes said.
“The roofs of…
Source : france24
