According to CNN, the Directorate of Disaster Management Affairs in Malawi, a landlocked nation in southeast Africa, Tropical Cyclone Freddy claimed the lives of over 300 people.
Malawi’s Directorate of Disaster Management Affairs informed , 326 persons may have perished in the cyclone. The destruction wrought by the tropical storm confined survivors who were battling for their lives. The officials added that as search and rescue operations going on, dozens of people are still missing and over 30 individuals from Chilobwe have died. On Monday, it was observed that individuals were scouring the debris for searching survivors with shovels and even their bare hands.
Speaking to CNN, Dorothy Wachepa, a mother of four, said she woke up to a deafening noise “resembling the sound of an aeroplane.”
“It was around 12 and I heard the sound accompanied by shouting from people upland,” she said.What followed was a torrent of muddy water, accompanied by rocks and trees, sliding down the mountain. All her possessions were washed away.Everything is gone. I was doing a small-scale business selling vegetables because my husband died in 2014. I’ve been supporting the children from the little that I have,” she added, reported CNN.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences over the loss of lives in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar from Cyclone Freddy.He said India stands with the people of the affected countries in tough times.On Tuesday, the Malawi Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change said the cyclone was “weakening but will continue to cause torrential rains associated with windy conditions in most parts of Southern Malawi districts”.
“The threat of heavy flooding and damaging winds remains very high,” the weather report said.In Mozambique, at least 10 people were killed and 13 injured in the Zambezia province, CNN reported, citing state broadcaster Radio Mozambique.Cyclone Freddy has broken records for the longest-lasting storm of its kind after making landfall in Mozambique for a second time, more than two weeks after the first.
