(English) Cyclone Gezani: ongoing update and how you can help

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.

As the impacts of Cyclone Gezani continue to be assessed – and the number of people negatively affected increases – we share an update on the situation, confirm that we are taking part in relief efforts and explain how you can help support Malagasy people.

The number of Malagasy people known to have been killed by Cyclone Gezani has risen in the last week from 38 to 62. It is believed many more may have been killed, but have not yet been reached and registered.

At least 804 men, women and children are now known to have been injured, an increase on the 374 people we reported on 17^th February, and at least 18,000 homes have been destroyed.

More than 35,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, and more than 382,000 are now confirmed to have been negatively impacted by Gezani.

Once again, these numbers are likely to increase over the coming days and weeks, both as rescue efforts continue to reach new affected areas, and as the storms longer-term impacts continue to develop.

Gezani made landfall in Madagascar’s largest port city Toamasina (population 500,000) on Tuesday 10^th February.

Its winds, which reached 155 mp/h, devastated the city, as well as large areas surrounding it.

Gezani has damaged around 80 per cent of Toamasina and the surrounding region’s infrastructure and buildings, including both the city’s university hospitals and 21 health centres. Cold-chain vaccine supplies have been disrupted in at least two centres, reducing access to lifesaving care and provisions.

Organisations report that around 29,000 children in Toamasina alone have been unable to attend school, and warn of rising protection concerns for vulnerable groups including women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

Gezani damaged the city and its surrounding region’s power connections and generation to the extent that supply is at about five per cent of its usual – already low – levels.

This power disruption and physical damage to pipelines is also disrupting water supply, increasing the risk of water-borne disease outbreaks.

Gezani’s destruction means that at least 74 Malagasy people have been killed by cyclones and storms in this year’s cyclone season, following 14 deaths late last month caused by cyclone Fytia, which injured or affected at least 54,000 more people.

We at Money for Madagascar are supporting the national Malagasy recovery appeal, including providing food and assisting schools with material and equipment, and we are working closely to support our partner SAF Melaky as it works to provide food and assist Malagasy communities with recovery and rebuilding efforts.

And you can help us with this support.

To do so, please visit our Donation page and when filling out the form, select ‘Disaster and Relief Fund’ in the section marked ‘Fund’.

Next to the text ‘If you have a preference how your donation is used, let us know here:’ click ‘Cyclone Gezani Response’.

We would also like to once again make an important related note:

Cyclones and tropical storms are not new in Madagascar: the season comes every year, and lasts from November to April.

But climate experts report that the storms have increased in power and intensity in recent years, driven by climate change.

And the impacts of that – deaths, injuries and survivors losing their homes, possessions and farmland in Madagascar – are a particularly bitter irony because Madagascar is one of the world’s few ‘carbon sinks’, one of only four countries on Earth which emits less carbon than it absorbs from the atmosphere.

The Malagasy government is correct to call for international assistance to respond to the devastation wrought by cyclone Gezani, but the word can and must do more.

We are teetering on the brink of global climate catastrophe, and countries like Madagascar are those feeling the harshest effects of that catastrophe’s approach.

With your support, we are already working with Malagasy partner organisations and Malagasy people to support their efforts to protect their vital, vibrant, areas of wilderness, but they cannot – and should not be expected to – prevent global disaster alone.

We must come together to end practices which threaten us all, and are already killing and otherwise severely harming innocent men, women and children.

If you can, please:

• share this story

• refuse to buy products produced in ways harmful to the planet on which we live

• and use your voice: tell others what you are doing, and why, and call on your elected representative to take a tougher stand against practices which threaten us all, and are already killing Malagasy men, women and children

Thank you all so much for your continued support for our work with Malagasy partner organisations and Malagasy men, women and children. We could not do any of this without you.