This Emergency Appeal seeks CHF 4,000,000 and stands at 47 percent to date. Further funding contributions are needed to enable the Malagasy Red Cross Society (MRCS), with the support of the IFRC and other Movement partners, to continue with the preparedness efforts of and provide humanitarian assistance and protection to the 50,000 people affected by the effects of Tropical Storms and Cyclones that have affected Madagascar.
1. SITUATION ANALYSIS
Description of the crisis
Following alerts by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in the last week of January 2022, the devastating Tropical Cyclone (TC) Batsirai made landfall on the eastern coast of Madagascar on 5 February 2022, with wind speeds reportedly hitting an average of 165km/h but peaking at 230km/h (Category 4). This Tropical Cyclone (TC), which is the most powerful in recorded history to impact Madagascar, directly affected four (4) regions namely Atsimo-Atsinanana, Atsinanana, Fitovinany an Vatovavy and, with the districts of Nosy-Varika, Mananjary (Vatovavy Region), Manakara Atsimo and Ikongo (Fitovinany Region) being the most severely affected. Refer to the map below.
To make matters worse, the tropical storm Dumako made landfall on the 15 of February on Ile Sainte Marie, an area very close to where the tropical depression Ana affected a couple of weeks earlier. Initial reports as of the 17th of February from the BNGRC record 6 casualties, 2,982 displaced, and 5,095 affected people. As the only road giving access to the entire north and northeast of the island has been reportedly destroyed, leaving approximately 336,540 people affected countrywide as of 25 February 2022. Initial assessment also reports that at least 5 major roads linking regions and the capital city Antananarivo have been severely impacted, while about a dozen of the secondary roads were equally affected, with at least 17 bridges destroyed, complicating access to affected areas by road.
According to data from the National Office for Risks and Disaster Management (BNGRC in French acronym) and the Disaster Stakeholders Brainstorming Committee (Comité de Réflexion des Intervenants en Catastrophe – CRIC) 143,718 people (30,123 households) have been affected, with 21,922 people displaced (4,921 households) mainly hosted accommodation sites set up by the Government by the impacts of TC Batsirai.
TC Batsirai came only two weeks after communities in the Grand Tana area (Analamanga Region) were being affected by torrential rains and widespread flooding starting from mid-January 2022. This was worsened by Tropical Depression Ana made landfall between Toamasina and Ile Sainte Marie (Atsinanana Region) on the northeast coast of Madagascar on 22 January 2022. Thanks to coordination efforts, the government, via BNGRC, has dispatched intervention areas based on stakeholders’ capacities and respective areas of intervention. The MRCS has therefore been assigned to respond in three regions of southeastern Madagascar as per the map below:
Source: International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies