Cyclone leaves trail of destruction across Mozambique

Flooded homes are seen after Cyclone Idai in Buzi district outside Beira, Mozambique, March 21, 2019. (REUTERS)

JOHANNESBURG REUTERS April 26 - Homes were destroyed and some areas were cut off and without power in Mozambique on Friday after Cyclone Kenneth made landfall, the second major storm to hit the country in six weeks.   

 The category four storm battered northern parts of the country with winds gusting up to 280 km per hour (174 mph) after killing three people on the island nation of Comoros on Thursday.   
 It was the second strong cyclone to hit the impoverished nation, after Cyclone Idai flattened Mozambique’s fourth largest city and caused devastating floods in March, killing more than 1,000 across southern Africa.   

 About 90 per cent of homes, mostly made of mud, may have been destroyed in Ibo, a district of the Northern Province Cabo Delgado, where Cyclone Kenneth hit, according to an early report from local group Associacao Amigos de Pemba.   

 Further south, in Quissanga, there were also reports of destroyed houses, the association said. None of its contacts in Muidumbe, further inland, had answered their phones, while there was little communication with the Macomia District, to the north of Quissanga.   

 Saviano Abreu, Spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), who was in Beira, where Cyclone Idai struck, said there were reports that Macomia was badly damaged, but details were scant.