Cyclone Chido claims at least 94 lives in Mozambique

This handout picture on December 17, 2024 shows children next to a damaged tree after Cyclone Chido made its landfall near Pemba in northern Mozambique. (Photo/Eduardo Mendes/UNICEF/AFP)

Cyclone Chido killed at least 94 people in Mozambique in its deadly rampage through the Indian Ocean last week, the country's disaster management agency said, raising a previous death toll of 76.

The cyclone, which devastated the French island territory of Mayotte before hitting the African mainland, also destroyed 110,000 homes in Mozambique, officials said on Sunday.

After making landfall the storm ravaged the northern province of Cabo Delgado with gusts of around 260 kilometres (160 miles) per hour, pelting it with 250 millimetres (10 inches) of rain in a day.

That part of northern Mozambique is both regularly ravaged by tropical storms and wrestling with unrest from a long-running extremist insurgency.

In the hard-hit Mecufi district a mosque had its roof stripped by the gale, as seen in images taken by UNICEF.

Fears of rising toll

For the time being, Mozambique remains the country with the heaviest death toll.

Seven days after the cyclone hit Mayotte, 35 people were reported dead and some 2,500 injured on that archipelago by the French Interior Ministry.

But it is feared the toll may rise sharply given the scores of undocumented migrants from the nearby Comoros islands, who tend to inhabit Mayotte's many shantytowns flattened by the storm.

After sweeping over Mozambique, the cyclone moved into Malawi.

Despite losing intensity it killed 13 people and injured nearly 30 there, according to the Malawian disaster management agency.

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Source: TRT