The number of victims could further increase, while some villages in the most affected areas remain in the world.
Le Monde with AFP
The human balance of the Cyclone Batsirai, which has moved away from Madagascar Monday, has passed eighty dead, according to a new count announced by the authorities, Wednesday 9 February. Among these victims, sixty were identified in the Ikongo District, in eastern Indian Ocean Island.
The National Office for Risk and Disaster Management (NAMB), which compiles the elements reassembled from the most affected areas, particularly on the eastern coast of the island, announced thirty deaths, Tuesday.
The number of deaths could still increase, while in the most affected areas, some villages remain in the world.
The BNGRC further lists more than 94,000 affected and nearly 60,000 displaced, while many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies (UN) started to deploy resources and teams to help victims of these torrential rains.
The cyclone, who had previously overflown the French island of Reunion, hit Madagascar on Saturday to Sunday on the eastern coast, in an area of 150 kilometers long, little densely populated and agricultural. The cyclone then moved to the center, ravaging the “rice attic” of the country, which makes a fear of a humanitarian crisis.
Batsirai spared the capital, Antananarivo, and the main port of the country, Tamatave (Northeast). But he left a wake of destroyed or flooded houses, schools and care centers and about twenty roads and seventeen impassable bridges, which considerably complicates relief operations.
” Rice crops lost “
German experts arrived in the country, one of the poorest on the planet, to “support the humanitarian response in the Batsirai passages”, says the NAMB, and work is ongoing on the road.
“The rice fields are damaged, the crops of lost rice. This is the main culture of Malagasy and their food security will be seriously affected in the next three to six months if we do not act immediately,” said Pasqualina Disirio , Director of the World Food Program (WFP) in the country.
Many NGOs, including an action against hunger, Handicap International, Save the Children or the doctors of the world, had mobilized upstream of the cyclone, positioning the material and medicines beforehand. In parallel with the help of the government, they have brought the victims: food, primary health care and distribution of kitchen equipment, covers and hygiene products.
This new blow occurs while a severe drought in the South Malagasy plunged more than one million people in acute malnutrition, with pockets of famine.