Cyclone after cyclone pummels Madagascar

In Madagascar’s southwest town of Manakara, Gabriel Filiastre and his family joined other residents in seeking cover in a hotel as the nation shook from its fourth major tropical storm in one month.

“For us, this cyclone did more damage than the one before,” he said. “We need help.”

Cyclone Emnati made landfall on the island nation on Wednesday with average sustained winds of 84 miles per hour. Many of the six regions placed on red alert were previously affected by Cyclone Batsirai, which struck on Feb. 5. Earlier in January, Tropical Storm Ana left dozens dead across Madagascar, Mozambique, and Malawi. And last week, Tropical Storm Dumako killed at least 14 people and displaced more than 4,300 others. The four storms have killed nearly 200 people and worsened concerns of food insecurity. Forecasters believe eight to 12 more cyclones could hit the region before the cyclone season ends in May.

Authorities have not reported any casualties yet from Emnati but worry about the compounding impact. A drought in the hard-hit southern region had already left about 400,000 people at risk of starvation. The World Food Program partnered with the Ministry of Population to distribute food to those affected by the storm. 

CARE International was already responding to Batsirai’s impact with plastic sheeting for shelter and deployed an emergency team to Manakara. “The increased frequency of cyclones in Madagascar is causing a lot of fear in an already traumatized community,” said Chikondi Chabvuta with the group’s Southern Africa team. “When cyclones pass, the rains and flooding that follow cause tremendous loss and damage.”

World radar

• MYANMAR: Karenni State in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has witnessed near-daily fighting between military troops and state militias. Villages and towns have emptied as the conflict forced more than 170,000 villagers to flee, the Christian aid group Free Burma Rangers said. Since a coup last February, the military junta has faced growing opposition from protesters and armed militias across the country. The junta stood in for Myanmar this week at the United Nations’ top court, seeking to throw out accusations the country committed genocide against the Rohingya minority in a deadly 2017 crackdown.

• SOMALIA: As the country suffers from an ongoing drought, five to 10 desperate families arrive every day at Ontorley camp, said camp leader Nadiifa Hussein. Thousands walked for days from rural parts of Somalia to the capital city of Mogadishu in search of food. Other camps across the country are reporting similar spikes in arrivals as they struggle with meager resources. Somalia declared a humanitarian emergency in November due to the drought. The United Nations this month warned that more than 13 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya are facing severe hunger.
  

• CHINA: Parents in China spend nearly seven times the country’s per capita gross domestic product to raise a child, the YuWa Population Research Institute said this week. The report revealed that as of 2019 it cost more than $76,000 on average in China to raise a child to the age of 18. The costs are even higher in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Among the countries in the study, China ranked second in childrearing costs, behind only South Korea. The report called for education subsidies, equal paternity and maternity leave, and more child care centers to encourage people to have more children as the country’ population ages. For many years the country enforced a one-child policy on families.

• BRAZIL: The death toll from floods and mudslides north of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro topped 200 people this week. Some 51 people remain missing in Petrópolis. The rainfall last week exceeded the average for February, destroying homes and leaving gashes on the region’s mountainsides.

• TONGA: Five weeks after a volcanic eruption severed a major undersea cable, the Polynesian nation reconnected to the rest of the world on Tuesday. Tonga Cable said a crew on a repair ship replaced about 56 miles of cable damaged by the tsunami triggered by the eruption.

Africa brief

As news of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine made the rounds here in Nigeria, people worried about the thousands of Nigerians who attend medical school and other academic programs in the former Soviet republic. Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science in 2020 recorded 4,227 Nigerian students in the country. My brother quickly texted an old schoolmate studying at a medical university in Ternopil in western Ukraine. He said he was safe but spending the day indoors. Another family friend whose son left for his master’s degree in Ukraine this year said the family could only reach him by phone periodically. He and other foreign students spend the night in an underground bunker. Students from both Nigeria and Ghana have implored their governments to make plans to evacuate them.