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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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 by the natural disaster management agency, 39 people have died and nearly 65,000 others have been homeless since the end of last week. According to Midi Madagasikara, the government will declare a state of national disaster.
After crossing the Indian Ocean, 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 United Nations. The Mozambican government and UN agencies estimate the number of people affected by Ana in the provinces of Nampula, Zambezia and Sofala at 500,000.
In neighboring Malawi, four people have died. The storm plunged most of the country into darkness on Monday January 24. Flash floods forced power companies to shut down their generators. “The water level is too high to continue to operate, it’s too risky”, Electricity Generation Company spokesman Moses Gwaza told AFP. The company said it had started putting them back into service.
The Mozambican Meteorological Institute predicts four to six cyclones in the region during the rainy season which ends at the end of March.