Mozambique: Death toll from cyclone in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa rises to 15

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Death toll from cyclone in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Niassa rises to 15

9:43 CAT | 17 Dec 2024

Photo: Conselho Executivo Provincial de Nampula /Facebook

The number of people who are known to have died in Mozambique’s provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa as a result of Cyclone Chido has risen to 15, with more than 5,000 houses destroyed, official sources announced on Monday.

“The data we have now [indicates] a total of 100,172 people affected, which corresponds to 20,000 families and in terms of deaths we have fifteen,” the president of the National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (INGD) Luísa Meque told the media, announcing preliminary data from the National Emergency Operations Centre (CNOE), which said that there were 5,832 houses partially destroyed and 3,555 totally destroyed.

In the administrative post of Lúrio alone, in the district of Memba, in the province of Nampula, northern Mozambique, at least 1,242 houses were partially destroyed and another 3,555 were totally destroyed, specified Luísa Meque.

In the same district, the Mozambican authorities announced that at least 69 boats disappeared following the passage of cyclone Chido and another 102 were totally destroyed.

The intense tropical cyclone Chido, with force 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5), hit the coastal area of northern Mozambique on the night between Saturday and Sunday, according to the National Emergency Operations Centre (CNOE).

The authorities had already said on Thursday that around 2.5 million people might be affected by Cyclone Chido in the provinces of Nampula, Cabo Delgado and Niassa in the north, and Zambezia and Tete in the centre.

Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by climate change in the world, facing cyclical floods and tropical cyclones during the rainy season, which runs from October to April.

The 2018/2019 rainy season was one of the most severe on record in Mozambique: 714 people died, including 648 victims of cyclones Idai and Kenneth, two of the biggest ever to hit the country.

In the first half of 2023, heavy rains and the passage of Cyclone Freddy caused 306 deaths, affected more than 1.3 million people, destroyed 236,000 homes and 3,200 classrooms, according to official government figures.

Source: Lusa