- About a week after the passage of tropical storm Batsirai, the full extent of the damage on the island of Madagascar is still not foreseeable.
- The national civil protection agency BNGRC in the capital Antananarivo put the death toll at at least 120.
The district of Ikongo on the coast in the south-east of the island of Madagascar was hardest hit with 87 fatalities. The region was cut off from the outside world for days after landslides blocked roads.
Not all accident sites accessible yet
Employees of the Welthungerhilfe organization assume that it could take up to five days before all the affected villages can be reached. Some communities are still surrounded by water. In the particularly hard-hit areas, much of the progress made in the fight against hunger and poverty has been nullified because many fields and rice fields have been destroyed by the water masses.
Tropical storm Batsirai hit Madagascar on Sunday night with heavy rainfall, causing flooding and mudslides. Thousands of houses are under water or have been completely destroyed. Rescue workers from Europe are now on site.
Legend:
People search through the remains left behind after Cyclone Batsirai and the floods on the beach in Mananjary, in south-eastern Madagascar.
Reuters