Cyclone Batsirai is approaching Madagascar, posing a “very serious threat”
Cyclone Batsirai was expected to reach eastern Madagascar on Saturday, posing a “very serious threat” to millions of strong winds and torrential rains that will hit the large island in the Indian Ocean.
Residents hunched over before the storm arrived and winds of more than 200 kilometers per hour (124 miles per hour) were predicted as it carried down towards the country still recovering from the deadly tropical storm Ana in late January.
After passing Mauritius and drowning the French island of La Reunion for two days with torrential rain, Batsirai was about 250 kilometers east of Madagascar early on Saturday, the weather agency Meteo-France stated.
Batsirai should land between late afternoon and Saturday evening as an intense tropical cyclone, “which poses a very serious threat to the area,” the forecaster said in his morning bulletin on Saturday.
The storm’s eye was predicted to pass through the middle of the island overnight until Sunday, before leaving its western shores on Monday.
The winds can reach “more than 200 or even 250 km / h … at the point of impact” and the waves can reach as high as 15 meters (50 feet), Meteo-France said.
The United Nations said it was stepping up its preparedness with aid organizations, putting rescue planes on standby and storing humanitarian supplies.
The impact of Batsirai on Madagascar is expected to be “significant”, said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian organization OCHA, to reporters in Geneva on Friday.
At least 131,000 people were affected by Ana across Madagascar at the end of January. At least 58 people were killed, most in the capital Antananarivo. The storm also hit Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, killing dozens.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) pointed to estimates by national authorities that around 595,000 people could be directly affected by Batsirai, and 150,000 more could be displaced by new landslides and floods.
“We are very nervous,” Pasqualina Di Sirio, who leads the WFP’s program in Madagascar, told reporters via video link from the island in the Indian Ocean.
Search and rescue teams on the island have been put on standby and residents have strengthened their homes.
Sitting on top of his house, Tsarafidy Ben Ali, a 23-year-old coal salesman, held down corrugated iron sheets on the roof with large bags filled with soil.
“The wind gusts will be very strong. That is why we are strengthening the roofs,” he told AFP.
The storm poses a risk to at least 4.4 million people in one way or another, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
(AFP)
