Tropical Storm Kills Dozens and Displaces 200,000 Across Southern Africa

Dozens of people have been killed by a storm that has brought torrential rain and flooding to three southern African countries. 

Tropical Storm Ana has devastated the region, injuring tens of thousands of people across Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar, while over 200,000 have been forced from their homes and into shelters. Over 80 people are estimated to have died so far, with the toll expected to rise. 

Malawi has declared a state of disaster after flooding destroyed much of its major hydropower plant, plunging the country into darkness.

“Since most of the areas are inaccessible and considering the large number of displaced households, additional resources are required to provide assistance to all the affected people,” President Lazarus Chakwera.

 Storm Ana is just the latest in a series of deadly natural disasters that have hit the region in recent years. A spate of cyclones killed thousands of people and displaced millions, and a plague of locusts that swamped East Africa in early 2020 and devastated crops and farms. Experts say these events are being caused by climate change as ocean temperatures rise at a historic rate. 

“Madagascar finds itself a victim of climate change,” Madagascar’s President Andry Nirina Rajoelina said in a speech to the UN General Assembly last year. “My compatriots in the south are bearing the weight of climate change which they did not participate in creating.”