Families holding on to the hope of finding their loved ones alive, after weeks of being buried in the rubble left by the cyclone, received the sad news from authorities, Thursday, that search operations in certain parts of the affected areas, have ended, and those still not found, should be presumed dead.
Malawian officials said the death toll from the cyclone will surpass 1,200. The storm killed at least 676 people and displaced more than 650,000 others in southern Malawi.
Charles Kalemba, commissioner for the Department of Disaster Management Affairs, told reporters that the search and rescue team had ended operations in some districts, including Chiradzulu, where the government used excavators to sift through the muddy rubble, hoping to find survivors or remains.
“At this point…the work that they have done, even using the sniffing dogs, the chances of them being found [alive] are very slim,” Kalemba said. “But we have a process that would be followed where we would declare the missing [people] to have been passed on.”
However, Kalemba said the search team comprised of police and military were still working in two other mudslide-hit districts, Phalombe and Mulanje.
Cyclone Freddy, which also hit Mozambique and Madagascar, triggered floods and mudslides, destroyed many bridges and roads in Malawi, making many areas only reachable by boats and aircraft.
Kalemba said the country has started working on road reconstruction, using military engineers from Malawi and Tanzania.
Major General Saiford Kalisha, chief of military operations and training for the Malawi defense force, told reporters that areas that are cut off are expected to be accessible by road in about four weeks.
According to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs, an estimated 2.3 million people in southern Malawi have lost their crops and livestock, spiking fears of imminent food shortage in affected areas..
The World Health Organization has also warned about the destruction of health facilities and rise of diseases.
“The cyclone’s devastation has raised public health risks, including the increased spread of cholera, malaria, vaccine-preventable diseases, even COVID-19 and malnutrition," Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in a statement.
Speaking during a televised prayer organized by the Evangelical Association of Malawi on Wednesday, President Lazarus Chakwera said Malawians should not lose hope but instead turn to God.
“Because there can be no hope if you know that there is no one to call up and too many of us are losing it because our hearts are failing us, because of fear,” Chakwera said. “But we need to understand that there is a higher power who loves each one of us and loves this nation and who gives hope where there seems to be no hope at all.”
Meantime, the Malawi government has made adjustments to its 2023-2024 national budget to deal with the cyclone’s devastation, by allocating money for the purchase of two aircrafts to help in search and rescue operations in time of disasters.
Some of the information in this report came from AFP.
