Cyclone Gezani made landfall in Madagascar on Tuesday, battering the Indian Ocean island nation’s second-largest city with wind gusts reaching 250 kilometres (155 miles) per hour.
“It’s monstrous. Everything is devastated; roofs have been blown off, floors are flooded, and the walls of solid houses have collapsed,” a resident of Toamasina, on Madagascar’s east coast, told AFP by telephone during a brief return of connection.
“And I’m talking about the nice neighbourhoods, with well-built houses,” the source added, who had been without electricity since the afternoon, five hours before the cyclone struck.
In its latest update, the CMRS cyclone forecaster on France’s Réunion island confirmed that Toamasina had been “directly hit by the most intense part” of the storm.
Schools in several of the island’s regions will be closed on Wednesday, which the government has declared a non-working day as a precaution.
Although Gezani weakened and was downgraded to tropical storm strength as it moved inland, it is expected to regain cyclone intensity as it heads across the Mozambique Channel towards Mozambique.
Colonel Michael Randrianirina, who has been in power in Madagascar since an October military coup, said he would travel to Toamasina to be closer to the population during Gezani’s passage.
According to the CMRS, the cyclone’s landfall was likely one of the most intense recorded in the region during the satellite era, rivalling Cyclone Geralda in February 1994. That storm killed at least 200 people and affected half a million more.
