
Madagascar is bracing for the next in a series of intense cyclones, as the UK Met Office warns that such weather events will increase in intensity and frequency due to climate change.
Cyclone Faida is scheduled to make landfall in Madagascar today (Tuesday 4 February 2025). Its wind-speeds have been recorded as 65kmph, and are expected to increase as the storm makes its way south and west. It is expected to affect Analamanga, Alaotra Mangoro, Analanjirofo, Atsinanana and Sofia regions.
Such storms can cause severe damage, including severe and significant soil loss, as well as damage to property and death.
Cyclone Faida is striking just a few days after Cyclone Elvis, which reached Madagascar on Tuesday 28 January and lasted five days, killing at least ten people and causing heavy rainfall. The cities of Toliara and Taolagnaro recorded 196mm and 178mm of rain, respectively, and windspeeds reached 84kmph.
On Saturday 11 January, Cyclone Dikledi struck Madagascar. In its four days ravaging the state, and two days increasing in strength at sea, it killed at least ten people, caused flooding and landslides in northeast Madagascar, destroyed 203 house and damaged more than 1,000, displacing more than 7,000 people. More than 8,000 children experienced education disruption, because almost 250 classrooms were damaged or destroyed.
And as we noted, Cyclone Chido, which made landfall on Madagascar on Thursday 5 December 2024, killed at least 172 people, though none in Madagascar itself, and was the strongest storm recorded in some nearby islands for 90 years.
Cyclones are not unusual in Madagascar and its surrounding region, but their intensity and frequency are currently greater than the average recorded for the last century, and the UK’s Met Office, in a report published at the end of January, noted:
‘Dikeledi and Chido were the latest in a series of disasters that underscored southern Africa’s status as a region susceptible to hazardous weather events, with hundreds of thousands of people and livelihoods put at risk every year. The region is expected to experience increased storms as climate change continues to take root.‘
We at Money for Madagascar wish to underline the fact that Madagascar is one of the world’s few carbon ‘sinks’ – it removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits. It is therefore, one of just four nations confirmed as ‘carbon negative’.
Its people are also amongst the world’s poorest: 79.7 per cent of Malagasy people live on £1.73 or less per day – the global poverty baseline.
Malagasy people rely upon agriculture to survive, are among those least able to withstand climate catastrophe, and are least responsible for it, yet they are among those most severely harmed by its current impacts, including injury, property damage, the loss of irreplaceable fertile soil and in some cases even death.
It’s one of the reasons – along with the fact that every person deserves the chance to have a decent, fulfilling life – we work with Malagasy people to improve outlooks, potential and livelihoods through training and opportunity, as well as to safeguard the rainforest which is a source of much of the country’s uniqueness and joy, and a vital part of the fight to safeguard the environment upon which we all rely.
With this in mind, we call once again on the world’s wealthiest states – most of which are also the world’s greatest emitters of carbon and therefore causers of climate change – to assist the people of Madagascar with financial and technological aid, and assist every person on the planet by committing to net zero carbon emissions, and acting on that commitment.
We ask you to share this message with friends, families, and perhaps most importantly with your political representatives. This is an hour of extreme global need, and we can achieve far more together than any of us can alone.