Maputo, Mozambique
Wednesday December 18, 2024

Cyclone Chido has killed at least 34 people, injured more than 300 and destroyed more than 20,000 homes in Mozambique, the National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management announced on Tuesday.

The cyclone, which had ravaged the French archipelago of Mayotte on Saturday, then hit the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado on Sunday, where 28 people were killed, according to the institute.

Three others died in the province of Nampula and another three in the inland province of Niassa, it added.

The institute also counted 319 people injured during the passage of the cyclone, whose wind gusts reached 260km/h and rainfall 250 mm in 24 hours.

Some 23,600 houses and 170 fishing boats were destroyed, it added. 175,000 people are thought to have been affected by the disaster.

Chido hit the underdeveloped northern part of Mozambique, which is regularly hit by cyclones and is already suffering from conflict.

Chido headed for Malawi on Monday, and is expected to dissipate near Zimbabwe on Tuesday.

In Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean, the authorities fear that “several hundred” people will die as a result of Chido, perhaps even “thousands”.

Chido is the most intense cyclone to hit Mayotte, France’s poorest department, in 90 years. Classified as category 4 (out of 5), it cut a swath through the small archipelago on Saturday, where around a third of the population lives in precarious housing.

Humaniterre avec AFP