Cyclone

The World Bank will grant $7 million to Zimbabwe to help it fight the new coronavirus outbreak that is expected to worsen an already struggling economy and food crisis, a bank spokesman said on Wednesday.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expressing optimism that Mozambique’s economic recovery is on course, a year after the southern Africa country was beaten down by tropical cyclones Idai and Kenneth.

As the tropical cyclone Calvinia approaches, Mauritius has closed its main airport and shops as well as other businesses in the capital.

The number of deaths from a powerful storm that hit the Philippines on Christmas has climbed to 41, authorities said Sunday, with tens of thousands still in evacuation centres.

Tropical Cyclone Sarai has left two people dead and more than 2,500 needing emergency shelter in Fiji on Sunday.

In meteorological lore, hurricanes – cyclone-strength winds are usually named after females. But an exception was seemingly made last Saturday when ‘Hurricane Oshiomhole’ that sacked the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the maritime state of Bayelsa made landfall. This time, elated locals gave it a man’s name, in sheer awe of the comprehensiveness and clinical finish of the change it brought.

The death toll from a cyclone that barrelled into the coasts of Bangladesh and India has risen to 24, authorities said Monday, as the two nations assess the scale of devastation wreaked by the powerful storm.

With a strong cyclone approaching Bangladesh on Saturday, authorities used more than 50,000 volunteers and officials to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people to shelters across the low-lying delta nation's vast coastal region.

The World Bank will extend more than half-a-billion dollars in grants for cyclone-ravaged southern African countries, its chief announced on Friday as he concluded a visit to Mozambique, the worst affected country.

Nearly 800,000 people in eastern India have been evacuated from the expected path of a major cyclone packing winds up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour and torrential rains, officials said Thursday.

People in northern Mozambique braced for more rain Tuesday and the potential for worsening floods as the country deals with the aftermath of the second deadly cyclone to hit the region in the span of six weeks.

Serious flooding began on Sunday in parts of northern Mozambique that were hit by Cyclone Kenneth three days ago, with waters waist-high in areas, after the government urged many people to immediately seek higher ground. Hundreds of thousands of people were at risk.

Mozambique was bracing for a powerful cyclone to make landfall on Thursday, just one month after another cyclone devastated the country and neighbouring Zimbabwe leaving more than 1,000 dead.

Cholera has infected at least 1,052 people in Mozambique's cyclone-hit region, the health ministry said Monday in a new report, marking a massive increase from 139 cases reported four days ago.

The number of confirmed cases of cholera in the cyclone-hit Mozambican port city of Beira jumped from five to 138 on Friday, as government and aid agencies battled to contain the spread of disease among the tens of thousands of victims of the storm.

Baker Hughes, a GE company, has announced a donation of $50,000 to the ongoing disaster relief efforts in Mozambique, in the wake of Cyclone Idai.

A powerful cyclone that pummelled southern African countries earlier this month has left survivors facing “a ticking bomb” of looming disease outbreaks, the Red Cross chief warned Monday.

As Zimbabwe prepares for two days of mourning following the devastating Cyclone Idai, rescue workers said on Friday that they had recovered 145 bodies from a town in Zimbabwe.