The powerful cyclone Batsirai hits Madagascar raising fears of “significant and widespread damage” – Le Monde

Tropical cyclone Batsirai, which hit Madagascar on Saturday evening, February 5, with gusts at 235 km / h, lost power overnight, but floods are still to be feared due to heavy rains, indicates Sunday Weather. -Madagascar.

“Batsirai has weakened. At 4 a.m. local [2 heures du matin heure française], its center is positioned in the district of Isandra centre). The average wind is down to 80 km/h with local gusts of 110 km/h. It is moving west at 19 km/h.specify the Malagasy meteorological services.

According to Météo-Madagascar, “Localized or widespread flooding/flooding remains to be feared following the heavy rains” but Batsirai should “going out to sea in the Mozambique Channel at the level of the northern part of Atsimo Andrefana in the afternoon or next night”.

After pouring torrential rain for two days on the French island of Reunion, Batsirai made landfall around 8 p.m. Saturday (6 p.m. French time) in the district of Mananjary, more than 530 km southeast of the capital. Antananarivo.

Batsirai made landfall “14 km north of the town of Mananjary, at the stage of an intense tropical cyclone”with “a wind of 165 km/h and gusts at 235 km/h”confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) Faly Aritiana Fabien, an official of the National Office for Risk and Disaster Management.

Some ninety minutes after the arrival of the cyclone, the authorities had counted nearly 27,000 people who had left their homes, said Mr. Fabien, whose services prepared food, medicine and accommodation sites. A little earlier, the weather service of Madagascar had warned that “significant and widespread damage” were to be feared.

The inhabitants have prepared with the means at their disposal on the island, one of the poorest countries in the world, already hit by a deadly tropical storm in January, Ana, and swept since Friday by the wind and continuous rain. Ana, which also affected Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, left a hundred dead – including nearly sixty in Madagascar – and tens of thousands of victims.

Lack of drinking water

In the coastal town of Vatomandry (east), hours before Batsirai’s arrival, more than 200 people had crowded into a room in a Chinese-owned concrete building for protection, with families sleeping on mats or mattresses.

A local official, Thierry Louison Leaby, complained about the lack of drinking water, the supply having been cut before the storm. “People cook with dirty water”he worried, fearing an epidemic of diarrhea. “The government must absolutely help us. We weren’t given anything.”. Outside, dishes and plastic cups collected rainwater pouring from corrugated iron roofs, often reinforced with heavy sandbags or jerry cans.

Some have put aside provisions. “We have been stocking up for a week, rice but also cereals because with the power cuts we can no longer keep meat or fish”explained Odette Nirina, 65, a hotelier in this seaside town. “I also stocked up on coal. Here we are used to cyclones”.

The impact of Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar is expected to be ” considerable “including in areas still recovering from storm Ana, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, warned on Friday.

The director of the World Food Program (WFP) for Madagascar, Pasqualina Di Sirio, said she anticipates “a major crisis” on the Big Island, where the cyclone could affect more than 600,000 people, including 150,000 displaced. “We are very nervous”she said by videoconference to the press.

Rescue teams on the alert

Search and rescue teams have been placed on alert, stocks of supplies have been prepared and planes are ready to intervene in support of the humanitarian response.

Around 4.4 million people in total are at risk in one way or another, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), including “teams and partners” on the spot “are on alert and deployed in communities”.

Each year during the hurricane season (from November to April), about ten storms or cyclones cross the south-west of the Indian Ocean, from east to west.