According to officials, slow-moving cyclone that suddenly turned toward Madagascar has killed 11 people on the island nation as high winds torn down trees and floods of water rushed through villages, washing away houses.
The BNGRC national disaster management office had said on Thursday morning that Cyclone Gamane was predicted to glance off the island that sits in the Indian Ocean, east of southern Africa, but it had changed course and made landfall in the north on Wednesday.
Six people have drowned and five others got killed by crumbling houses or falling trees, authorities said, adding that some 7,000 people on the island were affected by the storm.
The cyclone had moved slowly, amplifying its destructive effects.
Video images revealed torrents of water rushing through villages and people making human chains in waist-deep water attempting to help those trapped in their houses to escape the deluge.
Numerous routes and bridges had flooded and cut off.
Meanwhile, Gamane has been reclassified as a tropical storm and was supposed to leave the island on Friday afternoon, meteorologists say.
The cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean typically lasts from November to April and sees around a dozen storms every year.
The recent disaster in December 2023, had killed eight people due to Cyclone Michaung as its intense floods was set to make landfall in India’s southern city of Chennai.
