Damaged buildings are pictured from inside a vehicle after Cyclone Kenneth swept through the region in Cabo Delgado province. — Reuters photo
BEIRA, Mozambique: A powerful cyclone pounded northern Mozambique on Friday, leaving one person dead and wrecking homes and communications, barely a month after the country was hit by one of the worst storms in its history.
Cyclone Kenneth, a Category Three storm on the hurricane scale, made landfall in Cabo Delgado province late Thursday after swiping the Comoros islands.
By mid-Friday, its peak winds of 160 kilometres an hour had fallen back to about 70 kph, according to the national meteorological institute.
But heavy rains were forecast over the next 24 hours, fuelling the risks of floods and mudslides in the poor region.
Mozambique’s emergency agency, the INGC, reported a death caused by a falling coconut tree in the port city of Pemba, Cabo Delgado’s provincial capital, along with severe flooding, mudslides and widespread power outages.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) reported “heavy damage” and wrecked homes in some coastal towns along the northern coast, while communication lines in Macomia and Muidumbe remain down.
In many affected communities, areas “are prone to flooding and landslides in normal rainfall, and this is far from a normal situation,” it warned.
In neighbouring Tanzania, the authorities issued red alerts to warn of the dangers from rain, floods and landslides.
The provinces of Mtwara, Lindi and Ruvuma were at highest risk, the country’s meteorological agency said.
Residents in Mtwara were leaving the coastal enclave with their families, some on foot, for emergency shelters, witnesses told AFP by phone.
Gelasius Byakanwa, the governor of Mtwara, ordered schools closed in his province and asked “students to stay home and employees not to go to their offices”.
In Geneva, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said Mozambique’s back-to-back cyclones were unprecedented.
“There is no record of two storms of such intensity striking Mozambique in the same season,” the UN’s weather agency said.
A fact-finding WMO mission in Mozambique will look at the “impact of climate change and sea-level rise on Mozambique’s resilience” to extreme weather, it said. — AFP