Mozambique: 69 weather-related deaths since October – INGD

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: 69 weather-related deaths since October – INGD

2:12 CAT | 16 Jan 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

Mozambique has registered 69 weather-related deaths since October, mostly caused by lightning strikes, drowning, collapsing walls, fires and electrocution.

Besides the 69 casualties, a further 37,082 people have been affected by rains, strong winds and other weather phenomena during the current rainy season, the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction (INGD) announced this Monday.

According to a preliminary INGD report seen by Lusa, most of the deaths were caused by lightning strikes, drowning, collapsed walls, fires and electrocution.

From October 1, 2022, to this Monday (16-01), 2,721 homes were partially or completely destroyed, and a further 3,312 flooded.

Bad weather also affected 2,127 schools, 40,602 students and 726 teachers, the INGD report reveals.

Mozambique is among the countries most severely affected by climate change and is currently in the midst of its October-April rainy and cyclonic season, with weather characterised by winds coming off the Indian Ocean and floods flowing down from southern Africa’s major hydrographic basins.

In November of last year, INGD announced that it needed 7.4 billion meticais (€112 million) for the 2022/2023 rainy season, a period during which at least 2.2 million people were expected to be adversely affected.

During the 2020-2021 rainy season, the country was plagued by extreme weather events such as Storm Chalane and Cyclones Eloise and Guambe, besides weeks of intense rain and flooding.

The 2018-2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record in Mozambique, with 714 deaths, including 648 victims of Idai and Kenneth, two of the worst cyclones ever to hit the country.

Source: Lusa