The exceptionally long-lived Cyclone Freddy killed more than 400 people in southern Africa, the vast majority of them in Malawi, where the death toll continued to climb Thursday night as hope of survivors dwindled.
Freddy struck twice in the region in just a few weeks, killing 73 people in Mozambique, 17 in Madagascar and now 326 in Malawi along the way, according to a latest national report announced in the evening by the president of this landlocked country, among most of the poor of the world.
“As of yesterday (Wednesday), the death toll from this disaster has risen from 225 to 326, the number of displaced people has more than doubled,” and surpassed 183,000 in Malawi, said Lazarus Chakwera, who traveled to Blantyre (south), economic capital and Bad weather epicenter.
Forming off Australia in early February, the cyclone, which was about to be classified as the longest on record, crossed the Indian Ocean an unprecedented distance of more than 8,000km east-west.
It made landfall on the east coast of Madagascar on February 21, killing 7 people. The phenomenon, which has raged for more than 35 days, then hit Mozambique, killing 10 people.
It then reversed in early March and hit Madagascar a second time, killing 10 more people there. It also returned to Mozambique where it still caused 63 deaths.
But in Malawi, which had only seen an increase in rainfall so far and where the cyclone finally struck on Monday, Freddy wreaked the most havoc. Attenuated but with gusts still reaching 200 km/h on its return, the phenomenon carried torrential rains that caused severe flooding and landslides.
The densely populated region of Blantyre has been devastated. A state of disaster and a two-week national mourning were declared. The police and army were deployed.
Buried in the mud
On Thursday, neighbors and rescue workers continued to search the mud in hopes of finding survivors. But more and more rescue operations end up with a macabre collection of decomposing corpses.
In the municipality of Manje, near Blantyre, residents called for help. Hundreds of bodies are buried in the mud there, they assured AFP. The foul smell and air bubbles rising to the surface from the waterlogged soil leave little doubt.
In front of a house in poor condition covered with earth, a dozen residents and five soldiers begin to dig up and extract a first body, that of a man.
“I hope they find other bodies so they can be buried and rest in peace,” said Rose Phiri, an elderly woman from the area.
Amidst the desolation, hope sometimes arises: the day before, help had miraculously saved a child. Promise, 13, was trapped in the mud in her collapsed home for three days.
President Chakwera repeated his call for help on Thursday, saying “the need is immense”. The day before, the head of state had asked for international help to deal with the immense destruction and described the disaster as a “national tragedy”.
In neighboring Mozambique, President Filipe Nyusi, who visited the hardest-hit province of Zambezia (centre) on the border with Malawi on Wednesday, also called for an “emergency” mobilization of national and international aid to “repair the destroyed infrastructure”.
Tropical storms and cyclones occur several times a year in the southwestern Indian Ocean during the hurricane season, which lasts from November to April.