The aftermath of tropical cyclone Batsirai.
Photo: United Nations OCHA
The death toll in Madagascar has increased to 92 after tropical cyclone Batsirai wreaked havoc in the island over the weekend.
The aftermath of tropical cyclone Batsirai.
Photo: United Nations OCHA
The death toll from tropical cyclone Batsirai has increased to at least 92 people in Madagascar and over 60 000 have been displaced.
Batsirai was the second tropical cyclone to hit the island in two weeks. The tropical cyclone made a landfall on the island on Saturday and has since caused extensive damage. Tropical storm Ana affected at least 131,000 people across the island in late January, with most of the 55 deaths coming in Antananarivo.
Batsirai made a landfall on Saturday 5 February 2020. Weather experts had predicted that the central part of the coast (in Madagascar) will bear the brunt of strong, damaging winds and torrential rainfall.
The cyclone’s powerful winds at 140 km/hand floods ripped people’s roofs and flooded their homes leaving many homeless. The hardest-hit areas were on the eastern side of the country, though the full scope of the damage was still being assessed.
According to Madagascar’s National Office for Risk and Disaster Management, more than 112,000 people have been impacted by Batsirai, which was classified by the country’s meteorology department as a dangerous storm.
The South African Weather Service previously said despite significant recent advances in Numeric Weather Prediction (NWP) and supercomputing, it was not possible to accurately determine whether tropical cyclone Batsirai will eventually affect South Africa, either directly or indirectly.
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