29 killed, thousands displaced by Cyclone

At least twenty nine people were killed and three others wounded following a cyclone that hit eastern Madagascar over the weekend.

Tropical Cyclone Ava passed through Madagascar on Friday and Saturday, hitting largely the eastern coast of the island with wind speeds of between 140-190 kilometers per hour (87-119 mph).

“The probationary report of cyclone Ava hit Madagascar, (shows) twenty nine people were killed,” Melisa Venance, Communications officer of the National Office of Risk and Disaster Management, said.

The administrative region of Haute Matsiatra, located 400 kilometer (250 miles) south of antananarivo, said that among those killed were eight people from a family, who had been at a funeral vigil on Sunday when their house was hit by a landslide.

“The bodies were searched for all night, and also the corpses of eight people, as well as an 11-month-old baby, and the body of the deceased were found beneath rubble on Mon morning,” the post said.

The National office of Risk and Disaster Management had earlier on Monday place the dead at at least six, and that over 13,000 people were displaced by the cyclone.

Also over 16,000 pupils had classes suspended till Thursday, because of flooding and risk of landslides.

In March 2017, Cyclone Enawo struck Madagascar, killing at least seventy eight people on its vanilla-producing northeastern coast.



Enawo damaged around thirty per cent of the crop within the world’s biggest producer, that accounts for nearly half of the world’s crop.

But Georges Geeraerts, the president of the group of the Vanilla exporters, said the cyclone Ava had not touched vanilla-producing areas and there had been “no impact” on production.