Deadly Cyclone Freddy Pummels Mozambique for 2nd Time

_: Cyclone Freddy pummeled Mozambique Saturday, killing one person, ripping roofs off houses, and triggering a lockdown in one port town, a resident and local media said, two weeks after 27 died when the storm first made landfall.

Freddy, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, started sweeping onshore by 10 p.m. local time (2000 GMT), satellite data showed, after hours of battering the southern African coast with rain.

It was the second time the cyclone struck the country since it was named after being spotted near Indonesia on February 6.

“The town is a no-go zone; no shops or businesses open. Everything is closed. We’re locked up,” resident Vania Massingue said by telephone from her house in the port settlement of Quelimane, located in the storm’s path in the central Zambezia province. “I can see some houses with roofs torn apart, broken windows and the streets [are] flooded. It’s really scary.”

Freddy could break record

After swirling for 34 days, the weather system is likely to have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the previous record was held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994.

Source: VOA