Cyclone Chido kills 94 people in Mozambique
Local officials said that Cyclone Chido, which reached the East African country last week, killed 94 people in Mozambique.
The country’s National Risk and Disaster Management Institute (INGD) reported that 768 people were injured and more than 622 thousand people were affected in some way by the natural disaster.
Chido hit Mozambique on 15 December with winds of 260 km/h (160mph) and 250mm of rainfall in the first 24 hours.
The same hurricane first caused damage in Mayotte in the French Indian Ocean, and then reached Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
In Mozambique, the storm hit northern provinces regularly hit by cyclones. He first reached Cabo Delgado, then moved inland towards Niassa and Nampula.
The country’s INGD said the hurricane affected the education and health sector. More than 109,793 students were affected and school infrastructure was severely damaged.
INGD said approximately 52 hygiene units were damaged, further compromising access to essential health services. This situation is exacerbated in areas where access to healthcare facilities was already limited before the hurricane.
Daniel Chapo, leader of Mozambique’s ruling party, told local media that the government was mobilizing support “at all levels” in response to the hurricane.
Chapo said during his visit to Cabo Delgado, one of the hardest-hit regions, on Sunday that the government was working with INGD to ensure that those affected in Mecúfi, Nampula, Memba and Niassa provinces could rebuild.
In Mayotte, Chido was the worst storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years, leaving tens of thousands of people reeling from the disaster.
In its latest update, the Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed that 35 people had died.
Mayotte’s governor had previously told local media that the death toll could rise significantly when the damage is fully assessed, “certainly several hundred” and could reach thousands.
More than 1,300 police officers have been deployed to support local people.
A week later, flowing water is gradually returning to the region’s capital, with many residents still lacking basic necessities. The ministry advised people to boil water for three minutes before consuming it.
The ministry stated that approximately 100 tonnes of equipment are being delivered every day while an air bridge is being built between Mayotte, Reunion and mainland France.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Friday that 80 tonnes of food and 50 tonnes of water were distributed across Mayotte that day.
Tropical cyclones are characterized by very high wind speeds, heavy rainfall and storm surges with short-term rises in sea levels. This often causes widespread damage and flooding.
INGD said the hurricane “once again highlights the vulnerability of social infrastructures to climate change and the need for resilient planning to mitigate future impacts.”
Assessing the precise impact of climate change on individual tropical cyclones can be difficult due to the complexity of these storm systems. But rising temperatures affect these storms in measurable ways.
The UN’s climate agency, the IPCC, has previously said there is “high confidence” that humans contribute to the increase in precipitation associated with tropical cyclones, while there is “medium confidence” that humans contribute to a tropical cyclone being more likely to be more severe.