Cyclone Freddy has left a trail of destruction in its wake, devastating Malawi and Mozambique with a surging death toll that began on Tuesday of early this week.
Local news outlets have been teeming with harrowing images and videos of collapsed bridges, washed-out roads and homes, and displaced people.
In Mozambique, Cyclone Freddy made its second landfall from Saturday night, unleashing heavy rains that disrupted transport and telecommunications services for four days.
Meanwhile, Malawi has recorded over 280 deaths, according to the Malawi Red Cross.
In response to the crisis, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera declared a state of national disaster and called for regional and international support.
On Friday, in an unprecedented move, Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema dispatched a Zambia Airforce plane on a rescue mission to Blantyre, Malawi.
President Hichilema expressed his solidarity with the people of Malawi in a Facebook statement, revealing that his government had sent K20 million for humanitarian assistance.
Tropical Cyclone Freddy has broken records, potentially becoming the longest-lived tropical cyclone on record, surpassing Hurricane John’s record of 31 days in 1994, according to Wikipedia.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has set up an expert committee to evaluate this.
Similarly, NASA reports that Freddy has set the record for having the highest accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of any southern hemisphere storm in history.
ACE is an index used to measure the total amount of wind energy associated with a tropical cyclone over its lifetime.
Freddy developed off the North Australian coast and became a named storm on February 6, 2023 and crossed the South Indian Ocean and made landfall in Madagascar on February 21 before hitting Mozambique on February 24.
The storm then spent several days tracking over Mozambique and Zimbabwe, bringing heavy rains and flooding before looping back towards the Mozambique Channel.
Gathering by Joshua Illya, reporting by Vesla Centurion Kals and editing by Ollus Ndomu
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