Gezani has hit just 11 days after Cyclone Fytia killed 12 people and displaced 31,000 in northwestern Madagascar.
At least 20 people have been killed in Madagascar as Cyclone Gezani made landfall, leaving a trail of destruction on the Indian Ocean island.
The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management said many of the 20 deaths it had recorded so far were caused by collapsing buildings and that at least 33 had been injured after the cyclone made landfall on Tuesday night in the eastern port city of Toamasina.
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Authorities said the storm, which unleashed winds in excess of 195km/h (121mph), was forecast to move across the island from east to west on Wednesday, though gusts have now weakened to speeds of about 110km/h (68mph).
Meteo Madagascar warned in an update at 1am local time on Wednesday (22:00 GMT) that “widespread flooding, flash floods, and landslides are highly likely”, as the cyclone made its way towards the country’s “central highlands from east to west overnight and throughout Wednesday”.
Red alerts, meaning imminent danger, were issued for the regions of Analanjirofo, Atsinanana, Alaotra Mangoro, Analamanga and Betsiboka in the country’s northeast, Meteo Madagascar said on its website.
Gezani has already caused flooding, electricity outages and widespread damage to homes, according to residents who spoke to the AFP news agency.
“It’s monstrous. Everything is devastated, roofs have been blown off, floors are flooded, the walls of solid houses have collapsed,” a resident of Toamasina, which has a population of 400,000 people, told AFP by telephone when communications briefly returned.
“And I’m talking about the nice neighbourhoods, with well-built houses,” said the resident, who had been left without electricity since the afternoon, five hours before the cyclone hit.
Colonel Michael Randrianirina, in power in Madagascar since an October military coup, visited Toamasina to survey damage and meet residents, according to videos posted on the Facebook page of the president’s office.
The CMRS cyclone forecaster on France’s Reunion island confirmed that the Toamasina port had been “directly hit by the most intense part” of Gezani.
Gezani made landfall on Tuesday night, less than two weeks after Tropical Cyclone Fytia hit northwestern Madagascar on January 31, killing at least 12 people and displacing 31,000, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA.
According to the CMRS, the cyclone’s landfall was likely one of the most intense recorded in the region during the satellite era, rivalling Cyclone Geralda in February 1994. That storm killed at least 200 people and affected half a million more.
Although Gezani lost steam and was downgraded to the level of a tropical storm as it headed into inland Madagascar, it is expected to accelerate to cyclone speeds on its way across the channel to Mozambique.
Meteo Madagascar said the storm was expected to move “into the Mozambique Channel between Maintirano and Morondava tomorrow evening or overnight”, as it continued in the direction of the African continental mainland.
The storm flooded, damaged or destroyed 18,600 houses, 493 classrooms and 20 health facilities, and caused “extensive losses to rice fields”, OCHA said, adding that floodwaters also affected drinking water supplies, posing public health risks.
Climate change is expected to make tropical storms more intense, with island nations particularly at risk due to rising sea levels, as well as warming oceans, causing heavier rains.
Source: Al Jazeera
