Tropical Cyclone Chido killed 45 people and affected 181,000 others in the provinces of Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula, northern Mozambique, according to a new report from the National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (INGD) released on Wednesday.
The highest number of deaths occurred in Cabo Delgado, the province where the cyclone hit on Sunday, with 38 deaths, followed by Nampula, with four, and Niassa, with three.
According to the Mozambican authorities’ preliminary report, with data up to 18:00 on Tuesday, at least 493 people have been injured, one is missing and a total of 35,689 families have been affected, corresponding to 181,554 people.
Cyclone Chido also caused the total or partial destruction of 36,207 houses, as well as 48 hospitals, 13 houses of worship, 186 power poles, nine water systems and 171 boats.
The INGD also indicates that 149 schools, 15,429 pupils and 224 teachers were affected by the bad weather.
The tropical cyclone, which formed on 5 December in the south-west Indian Ocean, entered the district of Mecúfi in Cabo Delgado province on Sunday, with winds of around 260 kilometres per hour and heavy rain.
Mozambique’s government announced that it had sent multi-sector teams to the provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula to assist the populations affected by the cyclone, which left Mozambican territory on Tuesday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recognised that Cyclone Chido had aggravated the needs of people in northern Mozambique displaced by terrorism, with 190,000 people in need of ‘urgent support’.
Lusa