Tracing survivors of Cyclone Freddy in Malawi and Mozambique looks increasingly uncertain on Wednesday, after floods and mudslides killed more than 200 people and devastated towns and villages.
Freddy followed a circular path rarely charted by meteorologists, making a second landfall over the weekend in Mozambique, before heading to neighboring southern Malawi early Monday.
The Mozambican authorities reported 20 deaths and 24 injuries. But Malawi has so far paid the highest price for the return of the tropical cyclone, now counting at least “190 dead, 584 injured and 37 missing,” according to a statement from the National Disaster Management Office.
President Lazarus Chakwera, who returned from Qatar on Tuesday, praised the efforts of the volunteers: “We have arrived in a devastated nation,” he lamented in a statement.
Fear of jumping in cholera cases
A state of disaster has been declared in the Blantyre region, the economic capital and epicenter of bad weather.
Nearly 20,000 Malawians lost their homes when the cyclone returned to the Blantyre region.
The region’s hospital is “overwhelmed by the influx of wounded,” Doctors Without Borders, present at the scene, warned in a statement. “The Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital alone received 220 people, including 42 adults and 43 children who were pronounced dead on arrival.”
The NGO fears in particular a jump in cholera cases in the country due to a lack of vaccines, which is already fighting the epidemic of the deadliest infectious disease it has ever known. Nearly 59,000 people have been affected in the country and nearly 20,000 displaced, urgently housed in schools or churches.
Source: BFM TV
