ANTANANARIVO – Officials have reported that on Tuesday, a strong tropical storm named Cyclone Freddy pounded Madagascar’s eastern coast with gusts of about 130 kph, killing at least one person.
Before the storm made landfall, a 27-year-old man drowned close to the port of Mahanoro, to the north of Mananjary, according to the nation’s National Risk Management Office (BNGRC), prompting concerns about further overnight damage.
According to the BNGRC, the storm made impact around 16:20 GMT. In a communiqué, it claimed that “it has weakened further.”
But a top official with the BNGRC, Faly Aritiana Fabien, was quoted by AFP saying that it is still “one of the strongest cyclones” to have ever struck the sizable island in the Indian Ocean.
North of Mananjary, a coastal community of 25,000 people, the cyclone made landfall. In 2022, Mananjary was severely damaged by Cyclone Batsirai, which also claimed more than 130 lives nationwide.
Cyclone Freddy, according to the UN’s World Food Plan (WFP), could have an impact on more than 2.3 million people in Madagascar before moving on to Mozambique and Zimbabwe on the continent of Africa.
Authorities claimed that the island nation, which is used to tropical storms and cyclones, had set safety precautions in place to minimise casualties.
According to the national education administration, several regions called off the start of the second half of the week’s classes on Tuesday. In total, schools have been halted in four of the six provinces.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Cyclone Freddy is the second tropical weather system and first cyclone to strike this season.
Meanwhile, flights headed for east coast regions of Madagascar were cancelled.
On Monday night, Cyclone Freddy travelled close to 190 kilometres off the coasts of Mauritius and Reunion Island without causing much harm.
“As the Malagasy people, we are the most experienced country in terms of cyclones – even last year we experienced nearly six cyclones,” said Fabien.
He claimed that a preventative evacuation of at least 8,000 individuals took place in the Mananjary neighbourhood.
The yearly storm season, which lasts from November to April, frequently causes damage to Madagascar, a big island in the Indian Ocean.
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