Tropical Storm Ana leaves trail of destruction in southern Africa

Residents in an inundated neighbourhood of Madagascar's capital Antananarivo are returning with dread to see what remains of their homes and harvests, three days after Tropical Storm Ana relented.

Flooding has killed 51 people on the large Indian Ocean island off southeastern Africa since 10 days of intense rain began on January 17.

The storm formed to the east of Madagascar last week, causing floods and landslides and affecting around 130,000 people, with many made homeless overnight.

Ana then hit Mozambique and Malawi on the African mainland, killing 90 people across the three countries.

Rescue crews are still battling to access regions where roads and bridges have been swept away after the storm cut off tens of thousands and left them without power.

Travelling on makeshift boats, small groups row through water and a common floating plant called tsifakona normally given to pigs as food.

Some refused to spend the 300 Malagasy ariary ($0.08) for transport and are forced to carry their children where the water level remains high.

"I woke up at three o'clock in the morning to go to the toilet and found my house full of water," said Ulrich Tsontsozafy, 66.

Recalling the ordeal from the top of a pile of chairs in his waterlogged room, the retired soldier is trying to find ways to avoid having his feet constantly in the water.

"It ruins your skin. It chafes and it infects," he said of the floodwater, showing a fine white film that has developed on the skin between his toes.

- Humanitarian emergency -

Residents in Antananarivo's swampy Betsimitatatra plain are used to living with water thanks to an ingenious system of wooden pontoons that usually connect houses.

But the storm has engulfed everything with a brownish water that reeks of silt, while rats seeking food swam at the surface for a few days.

Tsontsozafy's rice paddy, coconut tree and avocado tree were destroyed.

His wife, Juliette Etaty, 65, managed to save some bags of rice, heaped up with pans and clothes in a pile that reaches their ceiling.

Their grand-daughter Luciana, 17, remembered waking up in the middle of the night with her feet dipped in water.

"The first thing I thought of was my school notebooks," she said.

Gyms and schools in the capital have been requisitioned and turned into emergency shelters.

But the family preferred not to go for fear of catching Covid-19 in a crowded space and leaving their home vulnerable to burglars and the elements.

Toky Ny Nosy, an unemployed 42-year-old, took shelter in a school as she thought her home was about to collapse under the weight of the deluge.

She also suffers from asthma and said the water was preventing her from breathing properly.

Despite coming back to her neighbourhood every day for almost two weeks, the water still reaches her hips.

Hundreds of families huddled in a classroom converted into an emergency shelter watch the arrival of a truck laden with food for the evening.

But "there's never enough," said Toky.

Deadly storm Ana strands tens of thousands in southern Africa
Lilongwe, Malawi (AFP) Jan 28, 2022 - Torrential rains from deadly Tropical Storm Ana subsided on Friday leaving tens of thousands of people across three countries in southern Africa cut off by flood damage, without power and living in shelters.

The death toll stood at 86 across Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi, as rescue crews battled on to access regions where roads and bridges had washed away.

In Malawi, where 20 people were killed, the Department of Disaster Management said impassable roads had forced families to carry corpses by foot for burial.

"Due to road cut-offs... communities are being forced to carry the dead for burial to their respective destinations," the department said.

President Lazarus Chakwera has declared a state of emergency. Most of Malawi lost power on Tuesday, and some regions were still in the dark on Friday.

Tropical Storm Ana brought torrential rains when it made landfall in Madagascar on Monday before ploughing into Mozambique and Malawi.

As phone coverage was slowly restored in Malawi, stories of the terrors experienced in the week began to trickle out.

Yohane Misongwe, who spoke to AFP over the phone from the southern town of Chikwawa, described how fellow villagers held on to trees as the waters swept through.

"Most of us spent two days on top of trees and rooftops as we waited for the water to recede. Some people were rescued by boats from the rooftops," he said.

- 'People need food urgently' -

"Everyone in the village is affected, because all our foodstuffs and clothes have been washed away. Even the crop in the field has been washed away, and we are appealing for assistance," said Misongwe, a subsistence farmer.

As he spoke to AFP, he was being transported by boat across the swollen Shire River to an evacuation camp.

Paul Ndamera, a disaster management official for the area, said flooding had left some areas inaccessible.

"There are some areas that we are unable to reach, but what we can say with confidence is that the floods have caused a lot of havoc in the district," he said.

"We are urgently appealing for assistance because without any help, a lot of people will starve to death. People need food urgently because all they had has been washed away."

In Madagascar, where 48 people were killed, some 130,000 people were directly affected and 72,000 lost their homes.

Many moved into makeshift shelters, and the disasters management office said about 20,000 had begun to return home to rebuild as waters began to recede.

People rummaged through the mud and rubble looking for any possessions to salvage, piecing together shelters from the ruins of their homes.

- 'Lost everything' -

In Mozambique, 18 deaths were reported. UNICEF said 10,500 homes were damaged, along with 12 health facilities and 137 schools.

In Nampula province, fisherman Abdul Ibrahim, 45, sat outside a mosque.

"I lost my fishing boat, it was swept away by the strong wind," he said. "I have never seen anything like this before. It will be difficult for me to recover."

Maria Jose, in her 30s, had made a bed on a classroom floor for her two children, aged two and five.

"The first winds blew away my house. I have nothing left, I lost everything," she said.

Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario said after visiting the region that he was shocked to see even new bridges had collapsed.

One bridge washed away in Cyclone Idai in 2019, but was rebuilt in 2020, he said.

Now, it has washed away again.

"We need to supervise the work more. The government cannot build weak infrastructure," he said. "The government should not build the same infrastructure every year."

Meanwhile, the second tropical storm of the season had already formed over the Indian Ocean.

Tropical storm Batsirai was expected to reach Mauritius on Wednesday.

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Tropical storm kills 46 in Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi
Antananarivo (AFP) Jan 25, 2022
Tropical storm Ana has killed at least 46 people in Madagascar, and Mozambique along with Malawi, which lost most of its power because of flooding, authorities in the three countries said Tuesday. The storm, which formed over the east coast of Africa's largest island Madagascar, has brought heavy rains causing flooding and mudslides in the capital Antananarivo. The latest report from Madagascar's disaster management agency on Tuesday showed that 39 people have died and nearly 65,000 have been le ... read more