Cyclone Batsirai kills 10, displaces tens of thousands in Madagascar
- The rain will cause flooding across parts of the country, Madagascar’s meteorological office said on Sunday
- In the eastern district of Mananjary, the epicentre of the cyclone when it lashed Madagascar, residents estimated that most of the town was ravaged
Cyclone Batsirai killed at least 10 people and displaced nearly 48,000 when it struck Madagascar overnight, the national disaster management agency said on Sunday.
Cyclone Batsirai weakened overnight but not before wreaking havoc in the poor Indian Ocean island nation which is still reeling from a deadly tropical storm earlier this year.
The eastern district of Mananjary was lashed with heavy rains and wind before the cyclone made landfall, uprooting trees, destroying buildings and forcing residents to weigh down flimsy corrugated iron roofs, an Agence France-Presse correspondent reported.
The rain will cause flooding across parts of the country, Madagascar’s meteorological office said on Sunday.
Batsirai made landfall in Mananjary on Saturday night as an “intense tropical cyclone”, packing winds of 165km per hour (102 miles per hour), Faly Aritiana Fabien of the country’s disaster management agency told Agence France-Presse.
His colleague responsible for risk management in the same agency, Paolo Emilio Raholinarivo, listed the numbers of dead and their location in a text message to Agence France-Presse, but gave no further details.
However the national meteorological office – which had warned of “significant and widespread damage” – said on Sunday that Batsirai, Shona word for help others, “has weakened”.