The death toll from Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar rose to 80 from a previously reported 29, the state disaster relief agency said on Wednesday as infor-mation continued to filter in from areas of the coun-try that were badly affected.
The cyclone slammed into the large Indian Ocean island late on Saturday, knocking down houses and electricity lines as it battered the south-eastern coast until it moved away late on Sunday, leaving 91,000 people with destroyed or damaged homes.
The disaster relief agency said that 60 of the deaths had occurred in a single area, the Ikongo district in southeast Madagascar. It said it was still collecting details about what had happened in Ik-ongo.
A member of parliament representing the dis-trict had previously said the death toll was high there, and that most victims had drowned or been crushed when their houses collapsed.
Batsirai was Madagascar’s second destructive storm in two weeks, after Cyclone Ana killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 in a different area of the country, further north.
The island nation, which has a population of nearly 30 million, was already struggling with food shortages in the south, a consequence of a severe and prolonged drought.
The World Food Programme said Batsirai had made the situation worse by destroying crops of rice, fruits and vegetables that were just two weeks away from harvest.
The cyclone caused widespread flooding and made 12 roads and 14 bridges impassable, cutting off some of the worst affected areas and impeding efforts to bring relief to local communities.
Many other residents were hammering at top-pled wooden walls, seeking to separate out individ-ual planks to start rebuilding, but the task was daunting. Drone footage filmed by Reuters showed vast areas where almost nothing was left standing.
Doctor Malek Danish Andrianarison, known lo-cally as Dr Gino, had to turn away a man with an injured leg for lack of medicines or clean bandages to treat him after the cyclone blew away the roof of his house, which also contained his medical prac-tice.
“You see here I have no roof, the medicine is ru-ined,” he said, gesturing helplessly at piles of dam-aged boxes of medication and soggy patient notes strewn on the ground. “You saw the man that was here, I couldn’t do anything for him.”
Dr Gino said he was relatively privileged and had enough to eat, but he felt desperately sorry for poorer people in the neighbourhood who had been left destitute.
Lisa Mara Lang, head of supply chain for Madagascar at the World Food Programme, said humanitarian agencies were working alongside the Madagascar authorities to assess the extent of the damage and the needs of the population. She said it would likely take several days for a fuller picture to emerge.
The World Food Programme said Batsirai had made the situation worse by destroying crops of rice, fruits and vegetables that were just two weeks away from harvest.
The cyclone caused widespread flooding and made 12 roads and 14 bridges impassable, cutting off some of the worst affected areas and impeding efforts to bring relief to local communities.—Reuters
