Tropical Storm Ana kills 46 in Madagascar and Mozambique


Tropical storm Ana has killed 46 people in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi, where most of the country has been without electricity in recent days, according to reports published on Tuesday January 25 by the authorities of the three countries.

The storm, which formed east of the big island of Madagascar, triggered heavy rains causing flooding and landslides in the capital Antananarivo. According to a report established Tuesday by the natural disaster management agency, 39 people have died and nearly 65,000 others have been homeless since the end of last week.

500,000 people affected

After crossing the Indian Ocean, the heavy rains from Ana fell on northern and central Mozambique. Three people were killed and 49 injured in Zambezia province, according to Mozambique’s National Risk Management Institute. The storm can potentially affect “highly vulnerable populations who have already recently suffered from natural disasters and conflicts in northern Mozambique“, alerted the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) of the UN.

The Mozambican government and United Nations agencies estimate the number of people affected by Ana at 500,000 in the provinces of Nampula, Zambezia and Sofala. In neighboring Malawi, four people have died. The storm plunged most of the country into darkness on Monday. Flash floods forced power companies to shut down their generators. “The water level is too high to continue operating, it’s too risky“, explained to AFP Moses Gwaza, the spokesman of the Electricity Generation Company.

On Tuesday, the company said it had started to resume service with its generators in Malawi. The Mozambican Meteorological Institute predicts four to six cyclones in the region during the rainy season which ends at the end of March.



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