Cyclone Gafilo was downgraded to a moderate storm and about to leave Madagascar on Thursday after leaving 32 confirmed dead, 155 missing and thousands others injured or homeless, local meteorological services said.
Meteorologist Sahondra Raveloarisoa said the storm was blowing at 75kph with gusts of up to 100kph.
”It is just now a moderate tropical storm,” she said. ”It will leave the shore softly in the course of the morning and disappear southwards into the Indian Ocean.”
A fishing boat with a crew of 12 or 13 on board sank in the mouth of the Betsiboka River near Mahajanga in northwest Madagascar, sources in the capital said on Thursday.
At the weekend, Gafilo caused 32 deaths and left 42 people unaccounted for, 11 injured and 6 088 homeless in the north of the island, the Madagascan rescue services said.
Another 113 people were on board a Comoran ferry, the Samson, which went missing north of Madagascar and ”most probably sank”, according to Comoran government officials.
A senior French navy official in the nearby island of Réunion said he was ”very pessimistic” about the fate of the ferry, but authorities in northwestern Madagascar refused to confirm that it had sunk and said the search for survivors would go on.
The northeastern town of Antalaha was almost entirely destroyed by winds of up to 225kph after Gafilo first made landfall on Sunday.
”Some areas are still inaccessible, which means that we do not have a complete picture of the damage or how many people have been killed,” presidential spokesperson Raymond Ramandimbilahatra said.
A preliminary assessment had shown that 95% of buildings in Antalaha were destroyed by the storm.
”This is very worrying because it is the main region for vanilla production,” Ramandimbilahatra added. Vanilla is vital to the country’s struggling economy and accounts for more than 10% of its gross domestic product.
The damage was even worse in the smaller towns of Antsiranana province, where residents were still without water and electricity.
”Almost 75% of villages in Andapa and Ambajana have been destroyed, and in Ambilobe several hundreds of hectares of fields have been flooded. We have attempted to supply the residents in the area with tents and food supplies, but we definitely need some assistance,” Ramandimbilahatra said.
Following a government appeal for international aid, France on Monday offered logistical support to transport relief supplies to affected areas.
Aid workers in the capital, Antananarivo, said the urgent needs were temporary shelter, medicines, water purification tablets, food and building materials.
The World Food Programme has said it will make some food available, although it is already struggling as a result of insufficient funds for its current operations in drought-affected communities in the south. — Sapa-AFP, Irin