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The death toll in Malawi from tropical cyclone Freddy has risen to 225, the country’s disaster management agency said on Wednesday, from 190 reported on Tuesday.
The Department of Disaster Management Affairs also said in a statement that 707 people have been injured in the storm and 41 are reported missing, as heavy rains continue to affect some parts of the southern African country.
“The number will only increase in the coming days,” said Guilherme Botelho, emergency project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Malawi’s financial center of Blantyre.
Malawi, which has been battling cholera outbreaks, is at risk of a resurgence of the disease, Botelho said, “mainly because vaccine coverage in Blantyre is very poor.”
Freddy is expected to disappear or move to the coast
In neighboring Mozambique, officials said at least 20 people had died since the storm made landfall in the port city of Quelimane on Saturday night.
After killing hundreds and displacing thousands in two southern African countries, Freddy will move from the land on Wednesday, which should bring relief.
The regional cyclone monitoring center on the island of Réunion projects that Freddy will move out to sea at the end of Wednesday evening. It is not clear whether the cyclone – now at its longest – will dissipate or move over land after that.
“Even rich countries with advanced democracies will not match the level of destruction brought by this cyclone,” said Kim Yi Dionne, a political scientist at the University of California Riverside. Freddy has accumulated more energy during his voyage in the Indian Ocean than the entire US hurricane season.
Yi Dionne said the scale of the damage would have occurred even though Malawi’s disaster agency had prepared and planned “for the challenges that come with the contemporary climate crisis.”
Scientists say climate change caused by industrialized nations that used to pump greenhouse gases into the air has increased cyclone activity, making them stronger and more frequent. The recently concluded La Nina which has affected the weather worldwide has also increased cyclone activity in the region.
African countries, which account for only about four percent of planet-warming emissions, “are once again paying the highest price for climate change, including their own lives,” said Lynn Chiripampezi, who heads Oxfam’s southern Africa humanitarian program.
Cyclone Freddy has been wreaking havoc in southern Africa since late February. It struck Mozambique as well as the islands of Madagascar and Réunion last month as it crossed the Indian Ocean.
Freddy was first bred near Australia in early February. The UN weather agency has convened a panel of experts to determine whether it has broken the record for the longest cyclone in recorded history, which was set by Hurricane John for 31 days in 1994.
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