Cyclone Batsirai killed at least 10 people and displaced nearly 48,000 when it struck Madagascar overnight, the Madagascan National Office of Risk and Disaster Management said on Sunday.
The cyclone later weakened, but not before wreaking havoc in the Indian Ocean island nation, which is still reeling from a deadly tropical storm earlier this year.
Parts of the country were lashed with heavy rains and wind before the cyclone made landfall in Mananjary.
Photo: Reuters
It uprooted trees, destroyed buildings and forced residents to weigh down flimsy corrugated iron roofs along its path, reporters said.
The rain would cause flooding across parts of the country, the Madagascan National Meteorological Office said on Sunday.
Batsirai made landfall late on Saturday as an “intense tropical cyclone,” packing winds of 165kph, said Faly Aritiana Fabien of the disaster management agency.
His colleague responsible for risk management, Paolo Emilio Raholinarivo, listed 10 dead, but gave no further details.
However, the meteorological office — which had warned of “significant and widespread damage” — on Sunday said that Batsirai had weakened.
The cyclone’s average wind speed had almost halved to 80kph, while the strongest gusts had scaled back to 110kph from the 235kph recorded when it made landfall, Meteo Madagascar said.
“Mananjary is completely destroyed, no matter where you go everything is destroyed,” said one resident named Faby.
Another man, Fana, was certain that “almost 95 percent of the city has been destroyed.”
Inland, in Antsirabe, 365km northwest of Mananjary, the storm uprooted large trees in the town’s public park.
The Meteo-France weather service had earlier predicted that Batsirai would pose a “very serious threat” to Madagascar.
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