Late in 2024, weather experts forecasted Malawi to receive above-normal rainfall with potential flooding, especially in the Southern Region.
This signalled good news for farmers, especially in the South where drought caused by the El Nino weather pattern scorched crops and left the country in need of urgent food aid for over 5.7 million people, according to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee.
However, the early warnings spelled doom and gloom for people stuck in lowlands and highlands where Cyclone Freddy dumped devastating mudslides, floods and strong winds in March 2023.
For Malawians horrified by the trail of devastation, the year ended was a stark reminder of deadly indifference as authorities struggled to put the battered communities out of harms’ way.
This is another disaster left to happen—a ticking bomb.
Despite the warnings of another stormy rainy season kick-started by weakened Cyclone Chido last December, thousands of Freddy survivors two years ago can be seen living and rebuilding in the risky zones where 679 people lost their lives and 538 are still missing.
Meanwhile, the majority of the affected population—estimated at over 2.2 million by the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma)—are still grappling with its devastating aftermath.
Eliza Botomani, from Chapananga in Chikwawa, saw her home shredded to rubble as she fled the roaring flood as did over 650 000 other displaced people who sought refuge in crowded camps.
Her loss is immutable as she returns to the ruins of her house every morning, struggling to move on and build back better.
Julius Mbewe, 62, cannot work anymore having suffered severe injuries while fleeing a falling house in the eye of a storm.
“I cannot afford a safe home,” he says. “I lost everything and I cannot do the donkey work. My wife and four children face worse hunger and poverty.”
This highlights the crippling impact of disasters made frequent and devastating by climate change.
As the survivors struggle to recover amid waning support, calls are rising for government to invoke existing laws that prohibit settlements mushrooming in disaster zones.
Shortly after the cyclone hit the South, a consensus emerged that clearing human settlements in perilous floodplains and mudslide-prone hills could lessen the regularity and impact of climate-related disasters.
However, the urgency has waned with time and the risky communities such as the slopes of Soche Hill in Blantyre, where Freddy buried homes and corpses in mud, are not only sprawling back, but also expanding.
The precarious return to doing business as usual constitutes a defiant reminder of a neglected crisis waiting to repeat itself with graver consequences.
Jimmy John stutters at the possible repeat of the horrifying storm that struck in the night.
“God forbid! We cannot bear another storm. Some people are willing to shift, but where will they go? Where will they find the money to construct durable houses in a safe place?” asks the chairperson of the disaster risk management committee in the hilly setting.
He recalls hearing “muddy water roaring downslope as if the hill had erupted” around 9pm.
“The muddy water swept everyone and everything in its way,” he recounts.
The full extent of the destruction came to light three days later when President Lazarus Chakwera led the nation in mourning and burying dozens in Blantyre.
The tragedy forced lawmakers to enact a neglected disaster management law that empowers government to forcibly evacuate people from disaster zones.
John says most people stuck in danger zones cannot afford safe land and construction materials.
Some locals in his hillside community claim to have been pushed out of town by population pressure as influential politicians, city lords and the rich cronies monopolise safe lands at the expense of the have-nots.
The Soche Hill disaster was neither the first nor the last. It happened in 2014 and geologists say it will happen again—with more devastating effects.
Meanwhile, Dodma estimated the loss caused by Freddy at $506.7 million.
The post-disaster assessment shows that disasters associeted with climate change could wipe out 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2040.
Last year, floods disrupted livelihoods, businesses and every sphere of life in Nkhotakota and Karonga districts along Lake Malawi, flooding the freshwater body even in the South where it stopped raining in February.
In the sugar-producing district of Nkhotakota, flooding forced children to make boat trips to school on a stretch where they used to walk on hard ground.
The country is trapped in cycle of climate-related disasters, leaving many struggling to build resilient homes and communities.
However, the push to build back better, including bans on risky settlements, faces resistance from culture warriors who refuse to abandon their homes and graveyards.
But climate-related disasters do not wait for procrastinators. They strike mindlessly.
Dodma chief Charles Kalemba warns: “In the past decade, more and more weather-related disasters have affected our country. Now they are also hitting areas that used to be spared.
“It’s a clear sign of climate imbalance. We can no longer just wait for the next catastrophe, rebuild and then see everything destroyed again. To break the cycle, we have no other choice, but to rehouse people.”
The United Nations estimates that about three quarters of the country’s population live in areas prone to climate disasters.
About 15 000 households in Nsanje District have moved upland to Mpama.
So have Masumbankhunda residents in the neighbouring Chikwawa.
