The death toll in Malawi as a result of the passage of tropical cyclone Freddy, since Sunday, amounts to 326, announced Thursday the Disaster Management Department (DoDMA).
In a statement, the DoDMA says that as of Wednesday there are still records of 201 missing persons and 774 people suffering miscellaneous injuries. This Thursday, the country began 14 days of national mourning in memory of the victims.
The new figures bring the total number of deaths caused by Freddy in southern Africa to more than 400, after have repeatedly hit Mozambique and Madagascar in recent weeks.
Floods and landslides forced some 183,000 people to leave their areas of residence in Malawi, after Freddy reached the southern region of the country, which includes the districts of Blantyre, Chikwawa, Chiradzulu, Machinga, Mulanje, Neno, Nsanje , Phalombe, Thyolo, Zomba and Mangochi were the most affected.
Blantyre, the country’s economic capital and Malawi’s second city, was one of the hardest hit areas, with 98 of the deaths.
Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera visited Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre on Thursday, where he greeted those injured by flooding and landslides and praised health workers.
Freddy is already one of the longest-lived cyclones in recent decades, having traveled more than 10,000 kilometers since it formed off northern Australia on February 4 and crossed the entire Indian Ocean to southern Africa.
The cyclone struck for the first time the east coast of madagascar on February 21 and returned to the island on March 5, where it left a trail of 17 dead and 300,000 affected.
In Mozambique, the cyclone, which made its first impact on February 24 and made landfall late last week, caused at least 58 deaths.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Freddy may have broken the record for the duration of Hurricane John, which lasted 31 days in 1994, although WMO experts will not confirm this record until the cyclone has dissipated.
Source: Observadora
