By RFIPubliée the 27-04-2019Modified the 27-04-2019 at 01:08

Hurricane Kenneth's visit on Thursday (April 25th) killed at least one person and caused significant damage, although he was less violent than Idai, who struck the country in March. It is a Category 3 cyclone, with winds of 160 km / h, while Idai was Category 4 with even stronger winds. But the rains do more damage than the winds. And they are important in the coming days.

The powerful cyclone tropical Kenneth has caused extensive damage in the extreme north of Mozambique, where he destroyed many homes, ripped trees and pylons and killed at least one person, according to the first assessment of Friday authorities. Less than six weeks after the devastating storming of the Idai storm in the center of the country, Kenneth drowned the Cabo Delgado province along the Tanzanian border on Thursday afternoon under a deluge of water and wind.

The cyclone hit the coast with extreme violence, higher than the one with which Idai drowned Beira on March 14 according to Météo-France, with wind gusts of 280 km / h and a cumulative rainfall of 100 to 150 mm. water in twenty-four hours.

The interruption of communications between the affected area and the rest of the country made Friday very random assessment. One person was killed by the fall of a coconut tree in Pemba, the main city in the north and capital of Cabo Delgado province, succinctly reported Antonio Beleza of the Mozambican Institute of Emergency Management (INGC) .

On Friday, Kenneth continued his run inland, but with much less violent winds (70 km / h maximum), according to the National Institute of Meteorology who demoted the cyclone into a tropical depression.

■ "Cases of cholera and malaria are to be expected"

Joined by RFI, Matthew Carter, spokesman of the Federation of the Red Cross in Nampula, Mozambique, reviews the relief.

" Right now, Red Cross teams are still trying to get there to assess needs. We are very concerned about the plight of hundreds of thousands of people living in the north, very poor people who live in odds and ends in flood-prone areas, and all the more significant rains are expected. All indications are that it will be necessary, first and foremost, to find shelter for them. The images that reach us already show us homes destroyed or damaged, trees torn out. And with significant rains in the next 72 hours, floods and outbreaks of cholera and malaria are expected. "

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