:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/SDXDV5OQM5H65D52UTANB6O3SM.jpg "14 dead and thousands displaced in Southeast Africa due to cyclone Eloise")
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Globe Live Media, Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Tropical storm Eloise crosses Botswana after causing at least six deaths in central Mozambique, three in Zimbabwe, three in Eswatini and two other fatalities between Madagascar and northern South Africa, according to figures from the UN, authorities and emergency services in these countries.
Thus, the total number of deaths would be at least 14 people, in addition to 8,300 people displaced in Mozambique alone, according to estimates by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this being the country most affected and where Eloise it made landfall on January 23, coming from the Indian Ocean.
As it passed through this nation, the storm briefly intensified until it reached the category of cyclone -with winds of up to 139 kilometers per hour-, to weaken hours later towards the interior of the African continent.
Days before its arrival in Mozambique, Eloise crossed the island of Madagascar as a tropical storm, where it caused one death, according to OCHA, after breaking into the coastal city of Antalaha on January 19, with maximum winds of up to 95 kilometers per hour.
The Eloise pass left three more dead in southeastern Zimbabwe, according to data from the country’s civil protection unit, washed away by floods in Chipinge, in the southeast of the country, an area already hit in 2019 by cyclone Idai, which caused at least 340 dead.
In small Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), at least three other people died, as the Red Cross confirmed to EFE today by telephone; two of them after their vehicle was washed away and a third due to the collapse of their home.
On the 23rd, a five-year-old boy was also dragged by the current of a river in the town of Masoyi, in South Africa, according to sources from the government of the Mpumalanga province (northeast) confirmed to Efe.
Eloise’s arrival in Mozambique was especially feared due to its potentially devastating effects on the same area of the country that suffered the catastrophic passage of Cyclone Idai in March 2019, considered the worst natural disaster in Southeast Africa in recent history.
In Mozambique alone, Idai caused at least 600 deaths, left almost two million people in need of humanitarian assistance and, according to evaluations by the International Federation of the Red Cross, destroyed the capital city of Beira by 90%. of the province of Sofala (center).