Mozambique: Cyclone Eloise leaves destruction behind

ANKARA (AA) – After hitting Mozambique's Sofala province on Saturday, Tropical Cyclone Eloise has left at least one person dead, thousands of houses destroyed, and tens of thousands of people directly affected, reports said.

“More than 1,000 houses have been destroyed and another 3,000 badly damaged. More than 160,000 people are already affected in Beira, according to Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Management and Reduction,” Act Alliance, a global alliance of more than 145 churches and related organizations, said in a report Monday.

“Preliminary reports also indicate that nearly 7,000 people have been displaced and more than 5,000 houses have been destroyed, damaged, or flooded in Buzi, Dondo and Nhamatanda,” Act Alliance cited preliminary data from Mozambique’s government, saying they fear these numbers may rise in the coming days after the full extent of the damage becomes clearer.

“The tropical cyclone left roads impassable in parts of Sofala, Zambezia, Inhambane and Manica provinces,” a report by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday.

“Eloise impacted Madagascar before crossing the Mozambican Channel, killing at least one person,” the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced in an earlier report.

The WMO quoted the Tropical Cyclone Centre (RSMC La Réunion) warning of heavy rains in parts of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, adding that South Africa’s weather service has issued “top-level Red Alerts as floods swept through the northern part of the country, including the famed Kruger National Park.”

“The tropical cyclone underlines once again the hazard posed by tropical cyclones and the importance of WMO’s efforts to strengthen early warnings and build resilience, especially in vulnerable countries on the frontline of climate change,” the report stressed.