After the drought, deadly waterspouts hit Madagascar
Houses invaded by water, neighborhoods completely flooded.
Tananarivians woke up with their knees in the water on Tuesday, January 18, 2022. In the Besarety district, handcart pullers offer to cross the flooded streets for a few hundred ariary.
© Sarah Tetaud/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Ten dead, injured and more than 500 people evacuated: this is the first toll caused by the torrential rains that have been falling for 48 hours on the capital of the Big Island and its surroundings.
The toll should get even heavier: it rained almost non-stop all night.
The Highlands have been experiencing exceptionally heavy rainfall since Monday that took the population completely by surprise.
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With our correspondent in Antananarivo,
Sarah Tétaud
Waterspouts.
Precipitation three times higher than the
forecasts of the weather services
.
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, the equivalent of 100 millimeters of water poured into Antananarivo.
The city and its plain have been classified in red vigilance, for "imminent danger" since noon yesterday.
The Malagasy capital, which was suffering from drought barely three weeks ago, is now in the grip of major floods. The three rivers of the plain of Antananarivo are in flood.
The Sisaony
climbed 3m50 in less than 24 hours. Dykes broke. The Marais Masay, a vast expanse of water in the heart of the capital, has completely overflowed. The slums were submerged. Landslides and collapses of retaining walls have been deadly.
All day, the teams of the civil protection corps, the firefighters and the technicians of the Authority for the protection against the floods of the plain of Antananarivo (
Apipa
), were hard at work to evacuate the population. disaster, repair dykes or pump water from flooded public establishments.
Among the most affected are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Soamandrakizay Covid Treatment Center.
The Director General of the National Office for Risk and Disaster Management, General Elack, yesterday organized a crisis meeting to give the first directives.
“
We have already identified all the accommodation sites for the evacuation of people if necessary.
Currently, people are recommended to leave the area as soon as possible, especially in the hill of
Ambanin'Ampamarinana
to avoid accidents due to landslides.
»
The peak of precipitation is expected for today.
“
In Greater Tana and the Analamanga region, everyone must be careful with the forecasts given by the weather services: the worst is yet to come.
»
According to the meteorological services, this depression, characteristic of tropical summer rains, should leave the Highlands on Friday to move towards the north of the island.
Heavy rains are expected from Friday on Nosy Be and its region.
The authorities are already alerting the population to the risk of a tropical storm forming at the end of the week off the central east coast of the island.
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