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| Eldson Chagara/Reuters |
Malawi is devastating by the deadly tropical cyclone Freddy that has crippled it to its knees.
On Monday, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera announced a State of Disaster in the southern area after a tropical storm killed almost 100 people and devastated the power supply and infrastructure.
Chakwera is now in Qatar, and it is uncertain if he will cut short his vacation to deal with the problem.
The designation will help the government to respond more quickly to the hurricane that made landfall on Sunday, pounding the country for the second time in a month.
According to the Directorate of Disaster Management Affairs, the hurricane killed 99 people and impacted around 10,000 people.
Freddy, which was designated on February 6 and looked to have been the longest-lasting tropical storm, has also caused torrential rains and chaos in other African countries such as Madagascar and Mozambique.
Because power supplies and phone signals were cut off in certain sections of the impacted area, the devastation and loss of life in Mozambique are not yet known.
Mozambique has received more than a year's worth of rain in the last four weeks, raising fears that rivers would rupture and cause widespread flooding.
Simultaneously, Malawi has also been dealing with the deadliest cholera epidemic in its history, and UN experts have warned that the situation might deteriorate as a result of Freddy.
Mozambique and Malawi were reckoning the cost of Tropical Storm Freddy on Monday, which killed more than 100 people, wounded hundreds more, and left a trail of wreckage as it blasted over southern Africa for the second time in a month.
According to the International Meteorological Organization, Freddy is one of the fiercest storms ever documented in the southern hemisphere and may be the longest-lasting tropical cyclone.
