OWN CORRESPONDENT , Antananarivo | Friday 5.00pm.
PLANES carrying 12 tons of aid from the UN’s World Food Programme took off on Friday for northeast Madagascar, as hundreds of thousands of people on the island suffered dire hardship after two cyclones.
Two Antonov planes belonging to the Madagascan army, each carrying three tons of food, left early on Friday for Sambava, on the Indian Ocean coastline. Both planes later made a second round trip, WFP officials said.
Cyclone Eline on February 17 and tropical storm Gloria on March 4 and 5 have affected 560000 people, leaving 10000 homeless, according to UN figures. The north of the island was worst hit and at least 130 people have died.
In Mozambique, the international airlift for victims of the disastrous floods roared back into action as skies cleared partially after 36 hours of torrential rain.
“They have given us all permission to go,” Royal Air Force loadmaster Neil Littlewood said as helicopters from Britain, South Africa, Belgium and Spain fired up their engines and loaded food and medical supplies for stranded communities.
Aid workers said the first priority would be to get food, safe water and medicines to the 64 refugee camps trying to care for more than 240000 people forced to leave their homes.
In Madagascar, most of the estimated 12000 people trapped by floods caused by two cyclones are in remote corners of the huge Indian Ocean island, and have received no assistance at all.
The WFP said it would use helicopters to dispatch 25 tonnes of food to 30000 people in the east coast town of Mahanoro, one of the areas worst affected by floods.
It would then deliver another 375 tonnes of food to areas in the northeast and west.
Cyclone Eline tore across Madagascar last month before moving on to devastate Mozambique, 400 km away across the Mozambique Channel.
It was followed last week by Cyclone Gloria, which cut a path across the northeast of the island before heading offshore and then swinging back to hit the south.
The emergency in Madagascar has so far been overshadowed by the disaster in Mozambique, but on Thursday the United Nations appealed to donor governments to take notice of the “dramatic” plight of the people of Madagascar.