3 yıl önce

Death toll from Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar soars

At least 120 people have died from last week's cyclone with most of the fatalities from a single district where it levelled homes. .

Reuters

Batsirai was Madagascar's second destructive storm in two weeks.

Madagascar's death toll from Tropical Cyclone Batsirai have risen to 120, with most of the fatalities from a single district where it levelled homes.

The national disaster management agency BNGRC said on Friday that the majority had died in Ikongo district, near the east coast of the Indian Ocean island.

About 125,000 people have been affected after Batsirai struck last weekend, the agency said in an updated fact sheet.

Aid agencies are worried about ensuring clean drinking water, and have begun setting up purification systems.

Water-borne diseases pose a major health risk after tropical storms.

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Some 42 percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition, even without a natural disaster.

Batsirai was Madagascar's second destructive storm in two weeks.

Earlier, Cyclone Ana killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 in a different area of the country, further north.

The island nation, with a population of nearly 30 million, was already struggling with food shortages in the south, a consequence of a severe and prolonged drought.

SOURCE: Reuters